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Oct 15, 2024 | 
hashtag.net.au | Matthew Sharpe |Australian Catholic
It was probably inevitable, but is deeply sad, that Plato’s Symposium (circa 380 BCE), has been drawn into the culture wars. A dialogue of great complexity and elegance, the book is one of the principal sources of the Greek philosopher’s views on love and beauty. There are also darker political undertones of the decline of Athenian democracy, surrounding the character of Alcibiades who crashes the drinking party the book depicts.
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
tolerance.ca | Matthew Sharpe |Australian Catholic
By Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Australian Catholic University
Written at a time when there were different norms around sexual morality, Plato’s Symposium is one of the principal sources of the Greek philosopher’s views on love and beauty. Read complete article© The Conversation
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
theconversation.com | Matthew Sharpe
It was probably inevitable, but is deeply sad, that Plato’s Symposium (circa 380 BCE), has been drawn into the culture wars. A dialogue of great complexity and elegance, the book is one of the principal sources of the Greek philosopher’s views on love and beauty. There are also darker political undertones of the decline of Athenian democracy, surrounding the character of Alcibiades who crashes the drinking party the book depicts.
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Oct 10, 2024 | 
dailybulletin.com.au | Australian Catholic |Matthew Sharpe
Political operatives on the far right have long spoken about their ambition to shift the “Overton window”. The aim is to “mainstream” ideas long considered unthinkable, through gradual, step-by-step radicalisation and repetition – especially on hot-button issues such as immigration, sexuality, race and identity. If challenged, commentators respond by appealing to “free speech”, accusing their critics of denying this basic liberal right.
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Oct 8, 2024 | 
tolerance.ca | Matthew Sharpe |Australian Catholic
By Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Australian Catholic University
Political operatives on the far right have long spoken about their ambition to shift the “Overton window”. The aim is to “mainstream” ideas long considered unthinkable, through gradual, step-by-step radicalisation and repetition – especially on hot-button issues such as immigration, sexuality, race and identity.
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Oct 8, 2024 | 
theconversation.com | Matthew Sharpe
Political operatives on the far right have long spoken about their ambition to shift the “Overton window”. The aim is to “mainstream” ideas long considered unthinkable, through gradual, step-by-step radicalisation and repetition – especially on hot-button issues such as immigration, sexuality, race and identity. If challenged, commentators respond by appealing to “free speech”, accusing their critics of denying this basic liberal right.
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Jul 15, 2024 | 
openforum.com.au | Matthew Sharpe
Home / Culture / A toast to Pyrrho’s Hog Matthew Sharpe | July 15, 2024 It’s fascinating to reflect on the different stories that philosophers have told themselves at different times about our profession’s history. For these stories have never ceased to change. “He whose mouth is out of taste, says the wine is flat. The healthy man commends its flavour, and the thirsty its briskness.
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Jun 20, 2024 | 
openforum.com.au | Matthew Sharpe
The most life-changing books can seem like they have always been there. What they say may seem obvious, once we’ve read them. But that’s only because they’ve reshaped how we look at things. The French philosopher Pierre Hadot (1922-2010) began his intellectual career as a trainee priest and philologist (a student of ancient books), with an interest in forms of mysticism.
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Jun 16, 2024 | 
openforum.com.au | Matthew Sharpe
Asked what was presently vexing him, the bard’s troubled Hamlet replies “words, words, words”. Here as elsewhere, there is method to the disgruntled Prince of Denmark’s feigned madness. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” Shakespeare’s Romeo elsewhere muses. But many human beings, fools for words that we are, would never think to smell it. One of philosophy’s many callings has always been to disambiguate ambiguous words.
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Jun 15, 2024 | 
openforum.com.au | Matthew Sharpe
When Michel de Montaigne retired to his family estate in 1572, aged 38, he tells us that he wanted to write his famous Essays as a distraction for his idle mind. He neither wanted nor expected people beyond his circle of friends to be too interested. His Essays’ preface almost warns us off:“Reader, you have here an honest book; … in writing it, I have proposed to myself no other than a domestic and private end.
