It was the pre-Socratic thinker Parmenides who first mooted the idea (as far as we know) in a document, only fragments of which survive in the writings of later philosophers,1 that all movement and development is illusory. His disciple Zeno developed this insight through a series of subtle paradoxes, over which philosophers and logicians have… Continue reading Zeno and the philosophical conundrum of pure reasoning
Tag: thought
What is the point of the Left? A dispassionate assessment of its virtues and vices
After the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the 1990s there was a brief window in which it was predicted that the forces of democracy and the free market had triumphed and leftist and socialist parties would thereafter only wither away. The view from the present is of a very… Continue reading What is the point of the Left? A dispassionate assessment of its virtues and vices
The Fragility of History: Historical Truth between Interpretation and Iconoclasm
It would not surely be too outrageous to claim that history is nothing but the artefacts of the past. The actors of the past have disappeared from history; of their thoughts, dreams, loves and lives nothing remains but whatever is recorded in their bones, their books, pictures and possessions, which become the future texts of… Continue reading The Fragility of History: Historical Truth between Interpretation and Iconoclasm