Explaining the Inexplicable (Video)
At the heart of the Enlightenment was the notion that the world could in principle be explained. Yet perplexingly the biggest questions seem to...
Why Philosophy Needs Literature: Interview with Alice Crary
Alice Crary is a moral philosopher. She is currently Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research, and her...
Showing off is seen as insincere, but is it always bad?
Albert Einstein once said: ‘I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.’ In that quip is the claim that virtue does not parade itself. The virtuous...
In Search of the Self (Video)
There is no self, no 'I', only a flickering illusion. So claim many neuroscientists and philosophers. Yet for the rest of us, the denial...
Accessible and Inaccessible Disciplines: why philosophy and science are similar but are treated differently
This post originally appeared on OUPblog and appears here as part of our partnership with them.
Amongst my books is a late nineteenth century edition...
Matter and Mind: Is consciousness inexplicable? (Video)
Neuroscience has enabled us to explain how the brain affects the body. Yet there is no theory to explain how the matter of the...
The Job Market: Hiring at Hunter College and the Graduate School, CUNY
I have two departments--Hunter College and the Graduate School, CUNY--and they are quite distinct. Hunter College is a four-year urban college with a highly diverse, economically...
#IdeasMatter: Interview with Nicolas Berggruen
Charles Taylor has been awarded the first $1 million Berggruen Philosophy Prize. According to the Berggruen Institute’s website, “The Berggruen Prize is awarded annually...
After the End of Truth (Video)
A generation raised on Foucault and Derrida has learned to distrust claims to objective truth. Yet the mantra that 'there is no truth' is...
The Word and the World (Video)
The power of words is a wonder, and language perhaps our greatest skill. Yet the gap between the sound of a bell and its...