Philosophy For Our Times

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes From Newton's laws to E=mc2, we think we have uncovered the secrets of the universe. But some claim these laws evolve and others point to their human and cultural origins. Might eternal natural laws be human hubris? Or is the mind of God in our grasp? CERN physicist and coiner of the term "Theory of Everythin...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes As China and Russia adopt their own variants, the reign of capitalism seems absolute. Yet there are many who wish for an alternative and some who claim a final crisis is in the making. Is there a radical alternative that we have not yet discovered? Or is the reality that capitalism is the only viable economic...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes We think space and time are the structure of the universe. Yet Einstein argued 'space and time are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live'. And philosophers, Kant and Heidegger, saw space and time as the framework of thought not the world. Are space and time just a human fantasy? Physicis...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes The power of words is a wonder, and language perhaps our greatest skill. Yet the gap between the sound of a bell and its description is huge. Are the limits to language so profound that the big questions of science and philosophy are beyond us? Or can everything be said if we try hard enough? Director of the...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes There is no self, no 'I', only a flickering illusion. So claim many neuroscientists and philosophers. Yet for the rest of us, the denial of the self feels like a bitter pill to swallow. Is the self a fantasy? Or is it essential to our being and consciousness? Cambridge and NCH philosopher Simon Blackburn, neu...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes From schizophrenia to depression we assume our psychiatric diagnoses are real. But as the mental health epidemic turns global, the categories now seem like the cause. Is it time to abandon our biological account of mental illness? Or is it the best strategy we've got? Polly Toynbee interrogates Cambridge psyc...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes Neuroscience has enabled us to explain how the brain affects the body. Yet there is no theory to explain how the matter of the brain creates thought and experience. Is consciousness inexplicable because it is not part of the material world? Or is it somehow physical after all and within our grasp? German phil...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes A generation raised on Foucault and Derrida has learned to distrust claims to objective truth. Yet the mantra that 'there is no truth' is a paradox. Do we need a new conception of fantasy and reality to free us from the tyranny of truth makers and the paradoxes of postmodernists alike? American philosopher Jo...