Investor Bill Miller’s $75 million gift to the Johns Hopkins philosophy department clashes with conventional wisdom regarding the value studying the humanities today.
Science should be about answering the “what if?” questions, but is that under threat by the privatisation of science and the drive for results ahead of any competition?
Imagine being one of the last few people alive. Would that make it ok to destroy the natural world? This thought experiment reveals the true value of nature, beyond the benefits to humans.
If leaders of educational institutions are concerned about the employability of graduates, they should avoid over-investing in STEM subjects and stop snubbing liberal arts.
Precisely because of his problems at home, Donald Trump wants to do more abroad – possibly with disastrous results. How can those who know foreign policy rein him in?
Archbishop Bishop Desmond Tutu is well known for having invoked an ubuntu ethic to evaluate South African society, and he can take substantial credit for having made the term familiar.
Around 1970 Playboy magazine received an unexpected proposition from the radical German philosopher Herbert Marcuse - he would do an interview, if he could pose for the magazine’s centrefold.