Existential Isolation and the Limits of Language Much of our uniquely lived human experience involves our capacity for subjective and self-conscious perception – our experience of the world, of ourselves, and of others, through a collage of ephemeral sensations and memories of a lived history, giving rise to a distinct self-awareness in the present moment [...]

Introduction Aping Mankind is Tallis’ passionate critique of modern scientific attempts to understand and explain what it is to be human. He describes what he sees as a growing pessimism or anti-humanism that would prefer to see human beings as ‘nothing but’ or ‘little more than’ some kind of animal. In short, Tallis sets out [...]

The Grand Inquisitor is a chapter from Dostoevsky’s novel ‘The Brothers Karamazov.’ It is an important section within the book and has become one of the most praised passages within modern literature. The Grand Inquisitor is a parable told by Ivan to his brother Alyosha, where Christ returns to earth during the time of the [...]

During the last five to ten years we have seen a re-emergence of scientists declaring that free-will – our capacity to intentionally direct our actions through rational choice – has been greatly exaggerated – indeed, that it may even turn out to be an illusion. This undermining of free-will comes primarily from neuroscientists who claim [...]

Check out the updated book list section for brief reviews of the following books: Science (Steve Fuller) Steppenwolf (Herman Hesse) The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Leo Tolstoy) The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky) As for future posts: I am currently reading Raymond Tallis’ Aping Mankind and though I am 3/4 through it, I can say that [...]

Not long ago, I posted an article critiquing evolutionary psychology. Given its popularity within academic circles and a mainstream culture presently swept up by what Raymond Tallis calls ‘neuromania’ (seeing neurobiological causes and explanations for near anything) and ‘darwinitis’ (seeing evolutionary adaptations almost everwhere), it is only natural for people to rush to the defense [...]

Within the psychological literature it has become commonplace to talk about the mind as a function of the working brain. Neurophysiological activity, in other words, is considered to be the ‘cause’ of the subjective experiences of the mind – how and why we think, feel, or act in the ways that we do. Indeed, we [...]

I have just started the daunting task of reviewing some of the books that I have read in recent years – books that I consider to be especially insightful in one way or another (now in the ‘book list‘ section). It is no secret that writers, philosophers, scientists, and so on, have their biases – [...]

What is Knowledge? To be knowledgeable is to have familiarity with some kind of fact or truth about the world – typically acquired by some form of education or experience. Epistemology is the philosophical study of how we can know what we claim to know. However, there are important differences in the methods of attaining [...]

In his recent book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker suggests that violence has been in steep decline over the last 20 years and argues that this drop in violence is the result of our being increasingly more rational creatures, capable of seeing the ‘futility’ of violence, while also developing more civilized ways [...]