Surprisingly, few of the world’s great philosophers have directly addressed this question. Instead, they have focused on a subtly different question: what does it mean to live well?
ReadLike all the most influential religious leaders, for every mystery they solve they pose another. Their guidance takes us deeper into the human mind than ever before but their torches only illuminate a fraction of it. The more we explore anima incognita, the more evident it is just how inadequate our maps of it are.
ReadRulers, wrote the Roman poet Juvenal, survive by providing the people with bread and circuses. His observation has acquired a twisted relevance in recent years. Brexit has become a political circus without the laughs while the duty to provide bread has become criminally neglected. These two aberrations are deeply connected.
ReadRosmaund Young’s The Secret Life of Cows made me think of how Hume did not so much elevate the animals to the supposed level of humans as claim that much human “reasoning” is no more rational than that of other animals.
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