Nigel Warburton

1 month ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Nigel Warburton

The war in Ukraine continues despite on-off peace talks. Nuclear powers India and Pakistan are currently in a stand-off that could reignite into conflict. And who knows what will happen in the Middle East, given Benjamin Netanyahu’s destruction of Gaza and his many probable war crimes, including using the starvation of Palestinian civilians as a weapon against Hamas.

1 month ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Nigel Warburton

I’m a fan of clarity in philosophy. Philosophy progresses through discussion. In a conversation, it’s important to understand one another. John Searle once declared: “If you can’t say it clearly, you don’t understand it yourself.” My instinct is to cheer this sentiment, because obscurity is often a smokescreen for ignorance and an indicator of pretentiousness, but, on reflection, there are exceptions to Searle’s claim.

1 month ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Nigel Warburton

On Wednesday, Salman Rushdie’s attacker Hadi Matar was to have been sentenced for attempted murder, but that has been adjourned to May 16. Hashem Abedi, who helped plan and prepare the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing in which 22 people were killed and 264 wounded, attacked three prison officers using hot oil and improvised knives at HMP Frankland a few weeks ago. Two officers are in hospital with severe stab wounds. Abedi, already serving a minimum of 55 years, is unlikely ever to be released.

2 months ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Nigel Warburton

Jean-Paul Sartre died in Paris on 15th April, 1980. 50,000 mourners followed his cortège along the Boulevard du Montparnasse to the cemetery. Among them was his soul mate Simone de Beauvoir. They’d met in 1929 when they were students at the École Normale Supérieure. He was 24 and she was 21. For over half a century they were first lovers, then the most intimate of friends, no matter how close they got to other people.

2 months ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Nigel Warburton

Nicolas Bourbaki was a Greek mathematician who later made a living playing cards in Parisian cafes. By the 1950s he had an office with his name on the door at the elite École Normale Supérieure. To date he has published an impressive number of maths textbooks and become an internationally respected scholar, famous for his work on set theory and functional analysis. But Bourbaki doesn’t exist and never has done.