In his preface to the Philosophy of Right, Hegel famously remarks that the owl of Minerva takes flight only as dusk is falling, which is to say that philosophy comes only at the end of an age, far too late in the day to tell us how the world ought to be; it can at most merely ponder what already . . . . Continue Reading »
The best torture is an effect caused by acts which are not torture. Andrew and Ross reflect. My basic stance on torture is pretty clear but also pretty modern: I want a strict, narrow definition of that which is absolutely impermissible. This suggests great skepticism and discomfort with what Ross . . . . Continue Reading »
A maximalist, Mr. Luhrmann doesn’t simply want to rouse your laughter and tears: he wants to rouse you out of a sensory-overloaded stupor with jolts of passion and fabulous visions. That may make him sound a wee bit Brechtian, but he’s really just an old-fashioned movie man, the kind . . . . Continue Reading »
And an open soul. I have just read through the first chapter (on "Glaucon’s Republic") of the amiable Prof. Ranasinghe’s brilliant, challenging, and edifying The Soul of Socrates (Cornell 2000). (Well, it’s not new is it, but it is new to me, and maybe to . . . . Continue Reading »
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