The Bloody History of the True Crime Genre
...to In Cold Blood. Like Capote’s text, De Quincey’s essay is a distinctively literary take on crime, using the murder narrative as a means to critique both Kantian philosophy and...
The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories
The roots of the word “conspire” mean to “breathe together,” suggesting quite literally a group of people clustering together as they plot… something. There are conspiracies at every level of...
Who Really Buys New Age Stuff?
...results indicate that interest in New Age philosophy is more democratic and diverse than a visit to the Spirit Weavers gathering might suggest. As always, the most lavish examples of...
Will Reading Romance Novels Make Artificial Intelligence More Human?
...of a machine called the calculus ratiocinator that would be programmed according to these syllogisms in the hope that, thereafter, all of the remaining problems in philosophy could be resolved...
Émilie Du Châtelet: Heroine of the Enlightenment
...Newton’s philosophy, which was radical stuff for a France still enamored with Rene Descartes, but she also published her work and was highly regarded for it. Her Institutions de physique...
Why Do They Build Party Platforms, Anyway?
...platform becomes “the only institutionally-approved statement of political philosophy” by the parties. The reason they’ve evolved into rather more elaborate documents than that 1832 paragraph is that parties are made...
More Than an Aria Written Over Rice: Rediscovering a Lost Rossini Opera
...not unique. The artistic philosophy of Richard Wagner came to dominate European opera in the mid-19th century. Rossini had little regard for Wagnerian ideals, and his work fell out of...
The Brain’s Memory Back-Up Plan
Memory is a slippery substance. As David Shields writes, “Reality takes shape in memory alone…by its very nature memory is selective.” While the poets have pondered it (“Memory: the past...
Inside the Alchemist’s Workshop
...Heating a Pot conveys the sense that alchemy–itself part chemistry, part speculative philosophy–is a science that is unequivocally and completely dependent on its instruments. There are at least five different...
A Critical Look at Gilded Age Philanthropy
...or charity was wasted, but monuments with his name on them showed his beneficence and guiding hand. Kathleen Davis calls the philosophy behind his philanthropy “tycoon medievalism.” There was something...