Philosophy
Self-Appointed Messiahs of the Nanny State
A new breed of libertarian paternalists who claim to know what’s best for us are nudging us down the road to serfdom
The Philosopher’s Home from Home
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Norwegian retreat no longer exists, but his presence among the fjords is still felt 60 years after his death
Where the End of History Began
Francis Fukuyama is famous for something he did not say. The book which made him a household name in the early 1990s was entitled, a little too grandiosely, The End of History and the Last Man. Hasty critics took him to be saying that history had come to an end, that Western ideology was now all-powerful, and that therefore there would be no more major conflicts of any kind. With every conflict that erupted after the publication of that book, from ethnic cleansing in Bosnia to the terror campaigns of al-Qaeda, commentators queued up to pour scorn on the naive Japanese-American political scientist who had claimed that nothing like that would ever happen again.
Star-crossed Purposes
Book review of The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama
Underrated: Gillian Rose
Daniel Johnson compares two sisters, one a vociferous campaigner against Israel, the other a towering figure in Judaeo-Christian thought
Being Is Believing
Book review of A Philosophical Retrospective: Facts, Values and Jewish Identity by Alan Montefiore
Philosophy as Confession
Book review of Little Did I Know: Excerpts from Memory by Stanley Cavell
Underrated: Charles Taylor
The tall man of modern-day philosophy needs a little more looking up to
Overrated: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The author of The Black Swan, so fashionable among credulous capitalists and gullible politicians, is by turns banal and bombastic
The Public Doctrine of Maurice Cowling
The head of the Peterhouse historical school was concerned with finding a British national identity based on truth and Christian commitment
Why Remoaners should back Boris
“Boris, ironically, now offers Remoaners the best chance of a soft Brexit, or at least a sensible one. And to those who want a second referendum—’the people’s vote’—there may even be a chance of that too.”
On the road
“In the summer of 1980, in the grip of some Kerouac-ish fantasy, I opted to hitch-hike from Laredo to New York”
Discovering the Great War of China
A third of a million Chinese labourers helped the Allies defeat the Kaiser, but their huge unsung contribution ended in betrayal