I’m no expert. Still, I reckon the notorious claim made by Michael Gove, a leading campaigner for Britain to leave the European Union, that the nation had had enough of experts, will dog him for the rest of his career. In fact, he wasn’t alone. Other Brexit leaders also sneered at the pretensions of experts, the majority of whom warned about the risks – political, economic, social - of a Britain outside the EU.
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Despite what some may believe, philosophy is prevalent and holds a great level of importance in today’s society. It allows us to examine the most fundamental issues that we face as self-aware beings and apply them to a variety of different topics, from free-will to politics to interpretation. To get you started on your own road of contemplation, we’ve compiled some thought-provoking ideas from David Edmonds’s and Nigel Warburton’s Philosophy Bites Again:
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To celebrate the publication of our second Philosophy Bites book, Philosophy Bites Back, authors Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds released a 39 minute podcast episode of a wide range of philosophers answering the question ‘Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?’
Listen to Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?
[See post to listen to audio]
Twitter Competition
We also asked you to let us know on Twitter who your favourite philosopher is and why. The competition is now closed and we received over 150 entries, which you can view on Storify. We can now reveal the winning entries, as chosen by Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds!
View the story “Philosophy Bites Back: The Winning Tweets” on Storify
David Edmonds is an award-winning documentary maker for the BBC World Service and a Research Associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University. Nigel Warburton is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University. They are co-authors of Philosophy Bites (OUP, 2010) and Philosophy Bites Back (OUP, 2012), which are based on their highly successful series of podcasts. You can also follow @philosophybites on Twitter.
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The post Competition results: who’s your favourite philosopher? appeared first on OUPblog.
To celebrate the publication of our second Philosophy Bites book, Philosophy Bites Back, authors Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds have released a 39 minute podcast episode of a wide range of philosophers answering the question ‘Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?’
Listen to Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?
[See post to listen to audio]
Twitter Competition
We’d like to hear who is your favourite philosopher. Pick your favourite philosopher and let us know why in a tweet (140 characters or fewer), incorporating the hashtag #philosophybites. We’ll be monitoring your suggestions from @oupacademic and @philosophybites. The competition closes on 10 January 2013 and our top five entrants will receive a copy of Philosophy Bites Back. The winning entries and a selection of shortlisted tweets will be posted to OUPblog in January 2013, and may well also appear in the next book in the Philosophy Bites series. To get you started, here are a few of ideas:
TIM CRANE: Descartes. Not because what I think what he said was true, but because he was incredibly clear in his vision of things.
ALAIN DE BOTTON: Nietzsche has a fascinating metaphysical structure to his thought, writes beautifully, and has a sense of humour.
RAYMOND GEUSS: Thucydides. My favourite philosopher because nobody else thinks he’s a philosopher, but I think he is.
BRIAN LEITER: Oh Fred. Nietzsche. I call him Fred. Because he’s a great writer, and he’s more right than wrong about most of the things he has views on.
GALEN STRAWSON: Kant. Every time I hear the words the Critique of Pure Reason I involuntarily salivate.
Good luck!
David Edmonds is an award-winning documentary maker for the BBC World Service and a Research Associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University. Nigel Warburton is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University. They are co-authors of Philosophy Bites (OUP, 2010) and Philosophy Bites Back (OUP, 2012), which are based on their highly successful series of podcasts. You can also follow @philosophybites on Twitter.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only philosophy articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Twitter ‘t’ icon by mfilej, Flickr.
The post Competition: who’s your favourite philosopher? appeared first on OUPblog.
What does Simon Blackburn have to say about morality? What does A.C. Grayling think about atheism? Alain de Botton about the aesthetics of architecture? Adrian Moore about infinity? Will Kymlicka about minority rights? For the last three years, David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton have challenged some of the world’s leading philosophers to hold forth on their favourite topics for the highly successful Philosophy Bites podcast. Now 25 of these entertaining, personal, and illuminating conversations are presented in print for the first time.
Sticking with the podcast theme, David Edmunds interviewed Nigel Warburton about the book and the podcast, as well as what it’s like to speak to all of these fantastic philosophers. You can hear the interview in the below podcast.
We will also be running a very exciting Twitter competition in conjunction with Waterstone’s around the time of the book’s UK publication, 9 August. Keep an eye on Waterstone’s Twitter feed for further details.
David Edmonds is an award-winning documentary maker for the BBC World Service, and is the author of Wittgenstein’s Poker (with John Eidinow), Bobby Fischer Goes to War, and Rousseau’s Dog. He is currently a Research Associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University and a Contributing Editor for Prospect Magazine.
Nigel Warburton is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University and author of bestselling books Philosophy: The Basics and Philosophy: The Classics. He also recently wrote Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction. He regularly teaches courses on aesthetics at Tate Modern and writes a monthly column ‘Everyday Philosophy’ for Prospect Magazine. He runs several blogs including Virtual Philosopher and Art and Allusion.
