2019.05.20 : View this Review Online | View Recent NDPR Reviews Devin Stauffer, Hobbes's Kingdom of Light: A Study of the Foundations of Modern Political Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 2018, 295pp., $50.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780226552903. Reviewed by Adrian Blau, King's College London Devin Stauffer offers a brilliant and controversial esoteric interpretation of Hobbes's attack on religion, and relates it to Hobbes's metaphysics, natural philosophy, and politics/ethics. Although Hobbes apparently tries to show that religion is consistent with his ethics and politics, Stauffer sees religious belief as Hobbes's 'most fundamental foe' (193). His 'desire to undermine religion' led to 'moral teaching that . . . is more likely to draw men away from belief than toward it' (236). The ultimate aim is not just to 'rationalize' Christianity by removing superstition, but to foster 'a far-reaching and comprehensive enlightenment' (272). My praise of this Straussian interpretation will surprise some readers, given that I have published a paper called 'Anti-Strauss'... Read More

by Nayef Al-Rodhan   International Relations (IR) developed as a distinct discipline after World War II but its theoretical and philosophical foundations predate the 20th century. ... Read more...

by Ian James Kidd and Matthew Duncombe Most departments have regular research seminars, usually weekly during term-time with an invited speaker, who talks for about ... Read more...

Natural preserves have been havens from the modern world, a place to get away. On social media, the good spots can no longer hide

2019.05.19 : View this Review Online | View Recent NDPR Reviews Andreas Stokke, Lying and Insincerity, Oxford University Press, 2018, 246pp., $55.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780198825968. Reviewed by Paul Égré, Institut Jean Nicod/ENS "La parole a été donnée à l'homme pour cacher sa pensée". Speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts. So writes Stendhal in an epigraph in The Red and the Black (chap. 22), crediting the Jesuit Father Gabriel Malagrida for the witty remark. Although this apocryphal citation is not included in Andreas Stokke's book, it may nicely serve to adorn and to describe Stokke's topic. He offers a brilliant and comprehensive study of the various ways in which language use allows us to be insincere: to express thoughts that we do not believe to be true (alternatively, to refrain from expressing thoughts we believe to be true, though the book puts less emphasis on that aspect).

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by Sarah Tyson The place of women in the history of philosophy tends to be most interesting to people who already have an interest in ... Read more...

by Brian Wong Most justifications of the diversification of academic philosophy tend to appeal to arguments along the following lines: i) there exist problematic norms ... Read more...

The U.S. introduced a nationwide ban on alcohol in 1920 with the Eighteenth Amendment, and repealed the ban 13 years later with the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment.  Much has been made about prohibitions against representations of the Prophet Muhammed in Wahabbist Islam, but there exist numerous examples of Islamic art from the past which freely contain such representations. Furthermore, the history of Christianity is itself replete with examples of people like John Calvin, who not only banned representations of God, but dancing as well, and was not a fan of music.Extreme disagreements over what people consider morally permissible exist, yet despite all the recognised historical variation in conceptions of morality, people generally hold their moral beliefs to be correct. Stepping back and taking an anthropological point of view, we seem to be wired to have the capacity for morality, while allowing for variability in what is understood to be moral. What’s going on?  Is it the cas...

Mozart’s revolution. He composed for aristocrats and the public alike, exploding class lines in a frenzy of creativity

2019.05.18 : View this Review Online | View Recent NDPR Reviews Graham Priest, The Fifth Corner of Four: An Essay on Buddhist Metaphysics and the Catuṣkoṭi, Oxford University Press, 2018, 172pp., $60.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780198758716. Reviewed by Mark Siderits, Seoul National University (Emeritus) This is a book about the catuṣkoṭi or tetralemma, a device used by some classical Indian philosophers and then exported to China in Buddhist shipping containers. Like its shorter cousin, the dilemma, the tetralemma purports to give all the possible stances one could take with respect to a proposition of the form 's is P'. But it has four points (koṭi) rather than just the two, affirmation and negation, of the dilemma, due to the addition of 'both' and 'neither'. Graham Priest follows the development of this device from its earliest Buddhist appearance, in certain of the Buddha's teachings, through its efflorescence in the Madhyamaka school of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism, its role in Jain perspectivalism, and its place in the... Read More