Lucretius II - Primavera

An extract from Lucretius II by Thomas Nail

Take a peek at the book extract from the recently published Lucretius II: An Ethics of Motion by Thomas Nail. How can the fear of death lead us to unethical action? In his didactic poem De Rerum Natura, Lucretius tell…

Picture of Alfred North Whitehead

A New Age of Whitehead Scholarship

At the end of his first year of what would turn out to be thirteen years teaching at Harvard, Alfred North Whitehead wrote a letter to his eldest son, North, in which he discussed how he felt about teaching his…

Alfred North Whitehead Photograph from Wellcome Images, CC-by

The Genesis of Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy

Not many people will read Whitehead’s recent book in this generation; not many will read it in any generation. But its influence will radiate through concentric circles of popularization until the common man will think and work in the light…

Operation Cue atom bomb test, 1955, Science Photo Library

Death Drive

Here, Matt Ffytche introduces a special issue of Psychoanalysis and History, Afterlives of the Death Drive. The death drive has proved relevant to so many different intellectual contexts in part because of the extravagance, or allusiveness of Freud’s original gesture…

Alfred North Whitehead and the Edinburgh Connection

By Leemon B. McHenry. 15 February is the birthday of British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, born in 1841 – he would have been 155 today. Whitehead delivered his masterpiece of metaphysics, Process and Reality, at the Gifford Lectures…

Scottish Philosophy: Neglect and Renewal

By Gordon Graham Philosophy played a key role in the curriculum of the Scottish universities from their foundation in the 15th century to the closing decade of the 19th century. By the middle of the 20th century, however, Hume’s great…