Sublime

For instance, Wolf, the doyenne of the field, proposes the theory that ‘meaningfulness consists in active engagement in projects or activities of worth’. She recognises the threat of nihilism and accepts that her theory ‘would be utterly destroyed if it turned out there were no such things as projects or activities of worth at all’. Her response is

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Decades after the truce, John Locke—whose philosophy influenced the American founding fathers more than any other—wrote about human nature as if it were an “unknowable x.” He knew that disagreements over religion (Jerusalem) and over reason (Athens) were dangerous, so he declared the question of human nature an unfathomable idea that people would n... See more

The relation of ethics to politics raises another ethical question of considerable importance. Granted that the good at which right action should aim is the good of the whole community, or, ultimately, of the whole human race, is this social good a sum of goods enjoyed by individuals, or is it something belonging essentially to the whole, not to th

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D’autres universitaires n’ont pas cédé sur le caractère utile de la philosophie aujourd’hui, comme Pierre Hadot ou Martha Nussbaum. J’ai contribué à diriger un groupe de philosophie, le London philosophy club, auquel ont participé de nombreux universitaires, partageant ainsi avec nous leur savoir, gratuitement. La philosophie dans la rue et la phil

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C’est pourquoi, lisant Sartre sur la liberté, Beauvoir sur les mécanismes subtils de l’oppression, Kierkegaard sur l’angoisse, Camus sur la révolte, Heidegger sur la technique ou Merleau-Ponty sur la science cognitive, on a parfois l’impression de lire les dernières nouvelles. Leurs philosophies restent intéressantes, non parce qu’elles sont vraies

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