Oligarchy and Democracy in Plato’s Republic (Part 1)

November 22, 2017

In Books VIII and IX of The Republic, dedicated to imperfect societies, Socrates undertakes a systematic political and psychological survey of the forms of government following the demise of his perfect state, doomed to extinction like all human creations. It is...

Hume’s Sceptical Views of Religion

October 30, 2017

As an empiricist, Hume believed that all our ideas are originally based on first -hand experience which enables us to grasp the notions of ‘habit, contiguity and association of ideas’. The law of cause and effect is nothing but the psychological interpretation of a...

Descartes on the dangers of false opinion

September 25, 2017

On the onset of his quest for pure and truthful knowledge, René Descartes decides to ‘overthrow’ all his former opinions since the latter may be built on sandy foundations. However, for fear of finding himself in a mental no man’s land, the philosopher sets for...

Russell’s World of Universals

August 28, 2017

In chapter 9 of his ‘Problems of Philosophy’, Bertrand Russell tackles the nature of universals and their role in our acquisition of knowledge. He first observes that contrary to proper names, like John or London, they are represented in substantives or nouns,...

The contiguous worlds of Philosophy and Science

August 9, 2017

In an article published on June 1 2017 in the ‘Times Literary Supplement’, David Papineau addresses the question: ‘Is philosophy simply harder than science?’ Described as ‘the route to truth’, philosophy is described not only as the handmaiden of science but as its...

Philosophy in Western Movies

July 26, 2017

The summer break should be an opportunity to get away from academic books and maybe indulge in the discovery of inspiring novels. But what about films? Twentieth-century philosophers have, on the whole, neglected what the French call ‘le septième art’ as very few...