One thing many of us appear to believe today is that a quick Google search will answer any question. As I discovered when trying to find out what we believe today, you don’t even need to do the search. Just type in the first few words and see how the algorithms complete it for you. So it was that the phrase “believe in” was completed by – as I suspected – “yourself”.
ReadTODAY – BBC RADIO 4. Talking about Derek Parfit, who died on New Year’s Day. Listen again for a limited[…]
ReadFor Derek Parfit, getting it right was more important than getting it out, to the frustration of publishers and editors but to the long-term benefit of readers and scholars. When he published, it mattered, and so as a philosopher, he is one of the few of his generation who unquestionably mattered.
ReadVideo of discussion at this years’s Battle of Ideas featuring me, Ivan Hewett, Sunder Katwala, Michele Moody-Adams and Brendan O’Neill, chaired by Claire Fox.
ReadAt its worst, a pseudonym is a desperate necessity, the only means of writing as yourself. At its best, it is a freely chosen way of writing as another or extending oneself. The world-views that determine which form of pseudonym prevails are fundamentally opposed in values.
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