Aristotle’s (384-322 BC) was a polymath who studied at Plato’s Academy. He came to differ significantly from Plato in his approach and subject matter however, attributing much more importance to the empirical observation of the physical world than to an abstract, invisible, eternal world of ‘forms’. Forms for him did not exist in a realm… Read More »
Graduating in 1971 I began a Ph.D in philosophy with David Hamlyn at Birkbeck College, University of London. I’d particularly enjoyed philosophy as an undergrad and this was a natural development. However, soon in need of an income I applied for and obtained a research job in sociology, which offered the possibility of doing a… Read More »
So this is an astonishing 500th blog, which means around half a million words. I’ve relished the opportunity blogging allows for ‘thinking out loud’. In other words for experimenting with thoughts without the need to factor in the kind of criteria that restrain in the publishing arena. I’ve given up on celebrating the 500th in… Read More »
We hear often about ‘red lines’ that cannot, must not, be crossed. These are typically held to apply both to individuals and to organisation or collectivities. But it can be a complicated business defining and acting according to red lines. It involves simplifying human relations, if in often very understandable ways. Some examples appear very… Read More »
Social media is replete with left debate, at least on my timeline. Some of it is deeply philosophical or theoretical, and some more explicitly activist-oriented; and typically these comprise entirely distinct discourses. This brief blog raises three issues that I regard as critical to any left action, whether philosophically/theoretically anchored or not. I used to… Read More »
I have commented before about the entry of metric regimes into academia, invariably negatively. They are inimical to creative thinking and publishing and a tailor-made instrument of managerial control. I have also put my own stats where my mouth is and suggested that I have been notably less ‘productive’ than many members of my own… Read More »
At the conclusion of his introductory account of AI Toby Walsh (‘The Shortest History of AI’) poses a number of contemporary challenges facing us. These make immediate sense to me, carry the potential of a real threat to our social wellbeing, and warrant reproducing here. So, thanks to Toby for what follows. He lists the… Read More »
I’ve long been fascinated by those ‘I believe’ collections of pieces from often-famous thinkers and writers. Sometimes I was informed, even pleased, by precis that captured my own predilections. Perhaps more often I was disappointed to find people I admired for one reason or another, had views irreconcilably different from my own. Finding myself with… Read More »
Born an only child and much taken with solitary endeavours I have now and again reflected on the implications of this for forming friendships. Maybe there’s a genetic element too. My father, not an only child but brought up with a brother nine years younger, was similarly attracted to solitude and to ‘standing and staring’.… Read More »
There is a long-established argument that from its origins in the long 16th century capitalism has had an inbuilt tendency to contradiction and fracture. Left to its own devices, Adam Smith confessed, the rich will get richer and the poor poorer. The compelling way in which Karl Marx revised the political economy of Smith and… Read More »