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Tamas Pataki
Tamas Pataki is honorary senior fellow at the University of Melbourne (School of Historical and Philosophical Studies) and honorary fellow of Deakin University. He studied philosophy at the University of Melbourne and psychoanalysis at University College, London University. He has been a lecturer in philosophy at RMIT, the University of Tasmania, and the University of Melbourne. He co-edited, with Michael Levine, Racism in Mind (2004) and is the author of Against Religion (2007), numerous journal articles and book chapters on the philosophy of mind, and many popular pieces and reviews.
Late in in the thirteenth century, Alfonso X (‘The Wise’), king of Castille, declared: ‘If I had been of God’s counsel at the Creation, many things would have been ordered better.’ He raised a storm. That wickedness, natural disaster and the inexorable corruption of things filled the world with suffering had hardly gone unnoticed, of course. Theologians had long sought to reconcile the e ... (read more)
The only salutary effect, it seems to me, of the evolution of religious fundamentalism over recent decades is the current reaction of some scientists, philosophers and public intellectuals. Since the end or the Enlightenment, interest in reasoned polemic against religion (which excludes communist attempts to extirpate it) has largely waned, possibly on the false supposition that the quarry had bee ... (read more)
In the last couple of decades, the disciplines of philosophy, psychology and neuroscience (and perhaps others, such as law) have witnessed intensified interest in the emotions. In cognitive psychology and neuroscience, several developments, especially advances in computational modelling and new brain-imaging techniques, brought early successes in understanding important aspects of perceptual and c ... (read more)
‘While some inventors concern themselves with creating the ultimate mousetrap,’ Philip Nitschke explains, ‘my aims are more modest. At the heart of all my efforts is a desire to fulfil the needs of Exit members.’
The members of Exit International – an organisation that has attracted 3000 members since its foundation by Nitschke in 1997, and that is now co-directed by Fiona Stewart – a ... (read more)
Robert L. Park is an American professor of physics who has taken up the sword against superstition and wobbly science. In an earlier book, Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud (2000), he assailed pseudoscientific delinquents and pretenders, and some of its themes reappear in Superstition. But the majority of the new book’s bogeys are generally acknowledged to be remote from science ... (read more)
This significant anthology consists of thirty-three articles by Jewish Australian scholars, lawyers, writers, educators, rabbis, journalists and other high achievers, prefaced by a thoughtful and wide-ranging introduction by the editors. Many of the contributors are distinguished in their fields and prominent in public life. The editors have cast the volume from a ‘perspective of commitment and ... (read more)
Socrates was executed in 399 BC, charged with refusing to recognise the state gods, introducing new divinities and corrupting the youth. The indictment was probably politically motivated. The philosopher was closely associated with the recently deposed oligarchy led by the murderous Critias, and he had taught Alcibiades, who betrayed the state. Later, Aeschines rebuked the Athenians: ‘You put So ... (read more)
That scourge of religion, Richard Dawkins, declared recently that the past year had been a bad one for God. He was probably referring to the success of his polemics against religion and to the tidal wave of kindred writings by other public intellectuals, such as Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. We do not know whether God would agree; and whether we should agree depends partly on how we read ... (read more)
John Armstrong hails from Scotland and is currently philosopher in residence at the Melbourne Business School. He is well known for several popular but elegant works on, broadly speaking, aesthetic matters: among them, Conditions of Love (2002), The Secret Power of Beauty (2004) and Love, Life, Goethe (2006). His recent book is more ambitious than its predecessors, but remains essentially in their ... (read more)