history of ideas | Pandaemonium

CHRISTIANITY AND LIBERALISM

January 25, 2014 by Kenan Malik

Review of Inventing the Individual by Larry Siedentop (Allen Lane) Towards the end of this engrossing, illuminating book, Larry Siedentop describes a fourteenth century battle between two Christian monastic orders. The Dominicans and the Franciscans were mendicant orders, begging monks who had abandoned the comforts of the cloisters to preach among the poor, largely in response to growing disaffection about the Church. At the heart of the struggle between the two groups, Siedentop suggests, lay ‘Contrasting accounts of relationship between […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: ancient greece, augustine, christianity, equality, history of ideas, history of moral thought, human agency, individualism, larry siedentop, liberalism, original sin

CYNICS, SKEPTICS, ATOMISTS AND RELATIVISTS

June 27, 2013 by Kenan Malik

In completing my book on the history of moral thought I had to cut the original manuscript quite considerably. Much of what has been lost is better off left on the cutting room floor. There are, however, some sections coherent enough to be worth reading. So, I am running an occasional series publishing some of the more cogent ‘lost pages’ from the book. Previous excerpts were on Machiavelli and on Descartes. This extract is on Democritus, Thucydides and Protagoras. The book itself, which […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: cynicism, democritus, ethics, greek philosophy, history of ideas, history of moral thought, skepticism, thucydides

DESCARTES’ GHOST

May 12, 2013 by Kenan Malik

In completing my book on the history of moral thought I had to reduce the original manuscript by some 30,000 words to get it to a reasonable size. Much of what has been lost is better off left on the cutting room floor. There are, however, some sections coherent enough to be worth reading. So, I am running an occasional series publishing some of the more cogent ‘lost pages’ from the book. The first was on Machiavelli. This extract is on Descrates and […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: descartes, dualism, history of ideas, history of moral thought, human nature, renaissance

ON MACHIAVELLI

April 17, 2013 by Kenan Malik

My book on the history of moral thought is written. In the process, I had to reduced the ms by some 30,000 words. Much of that is better off left on the cutting room floor. But there are also some portions coherent enough to be worth reading. So, I am running an occasional series publishing some of the more cogent sections that are no longer in the book. This first of the ‘missing pages’ is on Machiavelli. ‘A prince never […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: history of ideas, history of moral thought, machiavelli, morality

ORIENTAL ENLIGHTENMENT

February 10, 2013 by Kenan Malik

A book that I wish I had read many years ago. JJ Clarke’s Oriental Enlightenment is a superb study of ‘The encounter between Asian and Western thought’, as the subtitle puts it. It is primarily a historical study of Western perceptions of Chinese and Indian cultures and philosophies. Any exploration of the role of ‘Eastern’ thought in the Western intellectual tradition necessarily lies in the shadow of Edward Said’s 1978 work Orientalism, which has effectively set the terms of the […]

Categories: History • Tags: china, edward said, history of ideas, india, modernity, orientalism