The question of whether we have free will is rising up the media agenda again, partly as a result of Jonah Lehrer’s new book, The Decisive Moment. Or there’s the chapter on the matter in 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense by Michael Brooks. That chapter stands out in the book as the one which… Continue reading Holding on to free will
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Map of the Meaning of Physics
The media, at least here in the UK, has gone LHC mad. (All this talk of a big bang: have editors realised there won’t be any results to report in this news cycle, and many to come?) But in celebration of a truly astonishing piece of apparatus, below is my Map of the Meaning of… Continue reading Map of the Meaning of Physics
Fromm on standing in love
So we had, here, something of Fromm on falling in love. What of the contrast he makes between that essentially romantic conception of love and his preferred form of love, standing in love? Standing in love differs because unlike falling in love, which is premised on the fact that the lovers are still more or… Continue reading Fromm on standing in love
Fromm on falling in love
Fromm’s classic, The Art of Loving, is full of arresting ideas, if a little dated now, what with his complementary idea of gender and poor understanding of homosexuality. I particularly like the distinction he draws between falling in love and standing in love. Falling in love is perhaps the default idea of love today. When… Continue reading Fromm on falling in love
Doubting Hume was the greatest
Do you sometimes have the feeling that an opinion is coming at you from all sides? Right now, I have that feeling about the greatness of David Hume. The excellent Philosophy Bites had a recent podcast in which he was heralded as possibly the greatest English-speaking philosopher. Then I was reading Edward Craig’s Philosophy A… Continue reading Doubting Hume was the greatest
What is happiness?
When I was writing Wellbeing, a number of words seemed to be key when asking about what happiness is. I suspect that one of the reasons the happiness debate can be so heated stems from the stress that is placed upon the different, even opposite, ideas that these words represent. Though it’s not in the… Continue reading What is happiness?