Think Jacques Derrida was a charlatan? Look again
A scintillating new biography should make many doubters reappraise the enigmatic French philosopher
Philosophy
Is the University of Edinburgh right to “cancel” David Hume?
Great thinkers can have reprehensible views but there are better ways to deal with this paradox
Anti-lockdown libertarians distract attention from the true human rights challenge
A careful balancing exercise is needed to protect competing rights when fighting Covid-19
What Noughts & Crosses taught me about myths behind race and Brexit
Our fallible brains are not always wired to implement the moral and ethical blueprints needed forge human progress. Racism has influenced some of the most key elections in the past years—and harms everyone
Coronavirus has shown the dangers of our addiction to wealth. Our new world must prioritise happiness
Money is crucial to securing a stable and comfortable life. But pre-Covid, our obsession with wealth was reaching dangerous heights—now, we must rebuild
I looked forward to the end of lockdown. I didn’t expect to struggle with socialising
An early spate of Zoom quizzes and calls has abated in favour of the rare pleasures of occasionally seeing a friend from a maddening distance. It's still bizarre
How Covid-19 funerals have upended our traditions
Socially distanced mourning, 12-hour days, and and practising in full PPE—what the experience of funeral workers tells us about the changing face of grief
The philosophical flaw in saying “All Lives Matter”
Its effect is to stall conversations about anti-Black racism and instead either pretend that all lives do matter, or talk about everybody’s lives all at once—whether or not particular groups are subject to particular injustices right now
"The poorer sorte haue no place too flee": Inside the class wars of the plague
During 16th and 17th-century plague outbreaks, mass relocation on part of the rich provoked such controversy that fleeing one’s place of residence earned itself a popular term: flight
What right and left alike fail to see: life is filled with randomness
We are not so powerful as we think in shaping our own or others’ lives. Brute luck is just as important
It’s statues that edit the past—not their removal
Editing the past to tell some stories while silencing others is exactly what public commemorations do—even in the 19th century, the campaign to commission the Colston statue was met with a distinct lack of interest
One and a half cheers for the statue topplers
The drive to make our public spaces more diverse is clearly worthy of support. But aspects of the latest saga leave me uneasy
The curious psychology behind terrible pictures of food
Enough with fluffy sourdoughs and gorgeous cakes. What about food that is deliberately repelling in its awfulness?
The only coherent position is locking down without limit—or not at all
The former Supreme Court justice replies to a recent Prospect piece on liberty, law and the lockdown from Thomas Poole of the LSE
A new relationship between power and liberty
Rules laid down by the state are ultimately essential to our freedom
Inside the chaotic world of Zoom punditry
Our talking heads live in homes—probably nice ones. Why all the weird Zoom backgrounds?
The radical wrongness of Bernard Mandeville: the free marketeer whose bee analogy came back to sting him
His cherished text “The Fable of the Bees” is undermined by the fate of our modern pollinators
The duel: Is it more important to save younger lives?
If coronavirus presents medics with a stark ethical choice, which considerations should determine their course of action?
The extraordinary mind of Frank Ramsey
Although he died at 26, Ramsey was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century
How Zoom funerals are upending religious traditions
They seem eerie, but online funerals could prove emancipatory