Blogs

The Goodness of Work: Virtue, work, and salvation (Work #3)

The Goodness of Work: Virtue, work, and salvation (Work #3)

Work, according to Thomas Carlyle, is a purifying fire that saves us from all vices. But is Carlyle right? And is work really a path to virtue?

The Zhouyi – a Tool for Invention

The Zhouyi – a Tool for Invention

A copy of my talk from the third Zhouyi summit forum in Wuxi, China (with Chinese translation).

Maya Philosophy, and How to Give Shape to Time

Maya Philosophy, and How to Give Shape to Time

The Maya philosophers were preoccupied with time, and with how the ritual ordering of time is a way that human beings participate in the ongoing creation of the world.

Spring, Like Us, Grows Old

Spring, Like Us, Grows Old

A Poem about ageing and loss, written by one of China’s greatest women poets, Li Qingzhao

The Life of Activity: Work, Labour and Action (Work #2)

The Life of Activity: Work, Labour and Action (Work #2)

The philosopher Hannah Arendt provides an incisive account of work, labour and action. This week, we see how Arendt can help us think better about work.

Mozi and the Challenge of Universal Love

Mozi and the Challenge of Universal Love

Mozi was one of the most influential of all early Chinese philosophers. He proposed a society based on universal love, protected by a system of rewards and punishments.

Working it Out: The Philosophy of Work (Work #1)

Working it Out: The Philosophy of Work (Work #1)

Season three of our Looking for Wisdom course, where we're looking at the philosophy of work. This week: hunters and gatherers, Mencius, Aristotle and slavery.

Democritus and Reasons to be Cheerful

Democritus and Reasons to be Cheerful

Democritus and his teacher Leucippus were the first philosophers to propose that all things were made up of the joining-together of imperceptible atoms.

Cicero, the universality of divination, and surplus knowledge

Cicero, the universality of divination, and surplus knowledge

We know more than we know

The Art of Waiting: Tove Jansson’s Moominvalley in November

The Art of Waiting: Tove Jansson’s Moominvalley in November

A masterpiece of children’s literature about grief, friendship, human difference, and the art of waiting.

"Love and Understanding": The tangle of love and wisdom (Love #7)

"Love and Understanding": The tangle of love and wisdom (Love #7)

Is philosophy the love of wisdom? Or is it, as some philosophers have suggested, the wisdom of love? And what do love and wisdom have to do with each other anyway?

Some notes on Plato, divination and madness

Some notes on Plato, divination and madness

Is divination a kind of madness?