Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life
by Agnes Callard An iconoclastic philosopher revives Socrates for our time, showing how we can answer―and, in the first place, ask―life’s most important questions. Socrates has been hiding in plain sight. We call him the father of Western philosophy, but what exactly are his philosophical views? He is famous for […]
With 14 community newspapers due to close, too many parts of NZ are becoming ‘news deserts’
Greg Treadwell, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Auckland University of Technology When media company NZME proposed the closure of 14 community newspapers last week, the so-called “news desert” encroached a little further into the local information landscape. The term refers to those many regions in both town and country where newspapers […]
Orbital wins the Booker
Samantha Harvey’s Orbital has won the 2024 Booker prize. What it so skilfully and ambitiously exposes is the human cost of space flight set against the urgency of the climate crisis. While a typhoon of life-threatening proportions gathers across south-east Asia, six astronauts and cosmonauts hurtle around Earth on the […]
The Chairman’s Lounge: The inside story of how Qantas sold us out
How power, money and influence work in Australia Before Covid, both Qantas and its CEO Alan Joyce were flying high, the darlings of customers, staff and investors. After Covid hit, only money mattered – in particular, the company’s share price and extraordinary executive bonuses. Illegally redundant workers, unethical flight credits, […]
What is AI superintelligence? Could it destroy humanity? And is it really almost here?
Flora Salim, Professor, School of Computer Science and Engineering, inaugural Cisco Chair of Digital Transport & AI, UNSW Sydney. Maxim Berg / Unsplash In 2014, the British philosopher Nick Bostrom published a book about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) with the ominous title Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. It proved […]
The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World
A globe shows the world we think we know: neatly delineated sovereign nations that grant or restrict their citizens’ rights. Beneath, above, and tucked inside their borders, however, another universe has been engineered into existence. It consists of thousands of extraterritorial zones that operate largely autonomously, and increasingly for the […]
Small is the next big thing
When working for a large organization, weeks can pass before leadership makes important decisions that affect you and your team. Meanwhile, you’re on the hook to deliver products that don’t actually serve the customer-products you know you could improve, if given the opportunity. After years of consulting for Fortune 1000 […]
Rachel Kushner’s revolutionary spy novel reflects on our hurtle towards extinction
-Alex Howard,Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney Rachel Kushner ranks among the finest novelists working today. The recipient of several major literary awards and a former Guggenheim Fellow, Kushner, who has a background in political economy and United States foreign policy, uses her fiction to explore […]
Book Review: Range by David Epstein
What is the best way to pursue excellence? Should you focus all your time, energy, and attention on a single pursuit? Or would it be wiser to dabble in several before committing to one? In his book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World — an instant New York Times bestseller — David Epstein […]
Book Review: Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan
From the author of Mayflies, an irresistible, unputdownable, state-of-the-nation novel – the story of one man’s epic fall from grace. May 2021. London.Campbell Flynn – art historian and celebrity intellectual – is entering the empire of middle age. Fuelled by an appetite for admiration and the finer things, controversy and […]
An exposé of whatever-it-takes culture, Eric Beecher’s The Men Who Killed the News is an idealistic book for the times
Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne Disclosure statement Denis Muller was a colleague of Eric Beecher’s at The Sydney Morning Herald in the 1980s. Eric Beecher is a rare beast: a combination of journalist, media owner and idealist. In 1984, aged 33, he […]
Succession: Is a business plan important?
Maybe Aaron Sorkin should have written the Succession script…it might have made more sense! So…I finally got round to watching Succession, to see what it was all about and why so many people seemed to like it. Basing it on the Murdochs is a bit of a stretch, but a […]
Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life
by Agnes Callard An iconoclastic philosopher revives Socrates for our time, showing how we can answer―and, in the first place, ask―life’s most important questions. Socrates has been hiding in plain sight. We call him the father of Western philosophy, but what exactly are his philosophical views? He is famous for his humility, but readers often find him arrogant and condescending. We parrot his claim that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” yet take no steps to live examined ones. We know that he was tried, convicted, and executed for “corrupting the youth,” but freely assign Socratic dialogues to today’s youths, to introduce them to philosophy. We’ve lost sight of what made him so dangerous. In Open Socrates, acclaimed philosopher Agnes Callard recovers the radical move at the centre of Socrates’ thought, and shows why it is still the way to a good life. Callard draws our attention to Socrates’ startling discovery that we don’t know how to ask ourselves the most important questions―about how we should live, and how we might change. Before a person even has a chance to reflect, their bodily desires or the forces of social conformity have already answered on their behalf. To ask the most important questions, we need help. Callard argues that the true ambition of the famous “Socratic method” is to reveal what one human being can be to another. You can use another person in many ways―for survival, for pleasure, for comfort―but you are engaging them to the fullest when you call on them to help answer your questions and challenge your answers. Callard shows that Socrates’ method allows us to make progress in thinking about how to manage romantic love, how to confront one’s own death, and how to approach politics. In the process, she gives us nothing less than a […]