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37Excavating SocratesThe Philosophers' Magazine 53 120-126. 2011.“Socrates spent many of his prime years fighting the most vicious, pitiless wars. I think that has a huge impact. I wonder if his central interest in the good is because actually he saw a lot that was very bad all around him.”
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37The problem of pluralismThe Philosophers' Magazine 43 (43): 72-77. 2008.One does not need to hold that western philosophy, or some subset of it, is superior to other kinds in order to worry about whether different strands of philosophy can meaningfully engage in dialogue together. Nor do these worries necessarily entail any arrogance. We can always learn form others, but that does not mean we should not prioritise some encounters over others.
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36Thank goodness for DanThe Philosophers' Magazine 48 60-65. 2010.I listen to all these complaints about rudeness and intemperateness, and the opinion that I come to is that there is no polite way of asking somebody: have you considered the possibility that your entire life has been devoted to a delusion? But that’s a good question to ask. Of course we should ask that question and of course it’s going to offend people. Tough
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36Beyond the hoaxerThe Philosophers' Magazine 41 121-126. 2008.I’m not trying to be strategic. I’m not a politician. I’m a physicist, an academic, and, if you want, an amateur philosopher. I’m trying to say what I think is true as clearly and unemotionally as I can, and leave it to people to judge if my arguments are right or wrong
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36Anglo-Saxon reserveThe Philosophers' Magazine 43 (43): 60-66. 2008.There’s not only indifference, there’s actually a huge sense of sneering superiority. The need for intercultural understanding and global dialogue between different philosophical traditions and philosophical countries is so important. It’s just crazy to think that in your own monoglot culture you’ve got all the essential tools that you need to do philosophy.
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35Counsel of despair?The Philosophers' Magazine 49 57-62. 2010.“Whilst philosophical counsellors recognise that philosophy is a potentially practical and useful discipline, this isn’t how many of general public or counselling service providers perceive it. Philosophy has still got a lot of persuading to do about its practical relevance and efficacy.”
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35The populist threat to pluralismPhilosophy and Social Criticism 41 (4-5): 403-412. 2015.Although political pluralism can have an ethical justification, it does not need one. Political pluralism can be justified on the basis of an epistemological argument about what we can claim to know, one which has a normative conclusion about how strongly we ought to believe. This is important because for pluralism to command wide assent, it needs something other than an ethical justification, since many simply will not accept that justification. Thus understood, we can see that current threats …Read more
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33We’re all postmoderns nowThe Philosophers' Magazine 56 (56): 121-126. 2012.“I suppose my feeling about the post-modernism exhibition is that it’s testing philosophical claims through research, rather than a kind of active philosophical investigation.”
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32Schools of thoughtThe Philosophers' Magazine 56 (56): 14-17. 2012.Kids can astonish with the philosophical ideas they spontaneously have, but are they really able to follow through their implications systematically and logically? And isn’t that what philosophy is essentially about, not just having interesting ideas?
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32Seoul searchingThe Philosophers' Magazine 43 28-34. 2008.The overall nature of a world congress is a combination of the perennial features of its structure and the particular character given by its host. This was the first congress to be heldin Asia in the gathering’s 108 year history, and in the grand auditorium of Seoul National University, it was as though we were being welcomed to South Korea first, and the congress second
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Areas of Specialization
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