Don’t Take Life So Seriously: Montaigne’s Life Lessons

My dad was an unhappy man. He used to complain about the slightest thing being out of place – a pen, the honeypot, his special knife with the fattened grip. By the time his health really started failing, his arthritis so bad he could no longer get out of bed, his condition became all he …

Your Only Failure Is Your Utter Lack of Culture: Eight Life Lessons from Anton Chekhov’s Letter to His Brother

You have only one failing, and the falseness of your position, and your unhappiness and your catarrh of the bowels are all due to it. That is your utter lack of culture.

Oddballs of English Philosophy: Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English by Jonathan Rée

Despite the disarming glee of this intellectual romp, [Jonathan] Rée doesn’t quite banish the thought that, for the English, philosophy is what history was to Henry Ford, bunk — a notion clinched by T.S. Eliot’s portrait of Bertrand Russell as Mr Apollinax, wittering incomprehensibly and laughing like an irresponsible foetus at his own wit.

What’s Wrong with Being a Generalist?

I’ve always thought that life is too short, the world too big, and the wonders of existence too many, to specialize in anything. But today’s ruling ethos says that specialization is the key to advancing career-wise or to becoming a celebrated pianist. Is this really true?

Review: Witcraft by Jonathan Rée and The History of Philosophy by A.C. Grayling

Whereas Rée shows how religion and political radicalism can strike up fruitful alliances, the briskly rationalist Grayling refuses the title of philosophy to any view of the world that involves religious faith...The difference between them is clear from their writing. Rée is enter­taining and stylish, Grayling is lucid but lifeless.

Emotivism: A Minimalist Conceptual Graphic from Philographics

Emotivism: The assertion that all individual ethical judgments are purely expressions of one's own attitude intended to change the actions or attitudes of others.

Eclecticism: A Minimalist Conceptual Graphic from Philographics

Eclecticism: A conceptual approach that does not stick to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories or styles to gain a more varied or balanced insight into something.

Dualism: A Minimalist Conceptual Graphic from Philographics

Dualism: The conviction that all concepts within the world fundamentally consist of two contrasting qualities, such as good and evil, or body and mind.