ANTHONY GOTTLIEB
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The Economist
New York Times
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OTHER
Four women who shook up philosophy
Review of Benjamin Lipscomb’s “The Women Are Up to Something”. About Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley and Philippa Foot
The Economist, 6th November 2021


Clear thinking
Review of Steven Pinker’s “Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters”
New York Times, 31 October 2021


The man who thought too fast
Frank Ramsey—a philosopher, economist, and mathematician—was one of the greatest minds of the last century. Have we caught up with him yet?
The New Yorker, 27 April 2020


​Has The Economist made history, as well as reporting it?
Review of Arnold Zevin’s: “Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist”
The Economist, 16 November 2019
 
 
Nice to meet you?
Review of Malcolm Gladwell’s “Talking to Strangers”
New York Times, 6 October 2019
 
 
Accentuate the positive  (download)

Review of Steven Pinker’s “Enlightenment Now”, and “Factfulness” by Hans Rosling et al
New York Review of Books, 7 February 2019
 
 
The princess, the ghost and the machine
Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, and Descartes’ mind-body problem
Lapham’s Quarterly, December 2018
 
 
Nietzsche, philosophy and madness
Review of Sue Prideaux’s biography of Nietzsche
The Economist, 27 October 2018
 
 
How we got to be so self-absorbed: the long story
Review of Will Storr’s “Selfie”
New York Times, 1 July 2018
 
 
Laughing in the dark
Three books on Jewish humour
The Economist, 11 November 2017
 
 
The square and the tower
Review of Niall Ferguson on networks in history
The Guardian, 14 October 2017 
 
 
The rake’s progress
While earning his reputation, Casanova rubbed elbows with a Who’s Who of 18th century Europe
New York Times, 8 January 2017
 
 
The tolerant philosopher
Pierre Bayle, the forgotten hero of the Enlightenment
New Statesman, 12 August 2016
 
 
A universe unpeeled
Review of Sean Carroll’s “The Big Picture”
New York Times, 12 June 2016
 
 
Who was David Hume?  (download)
Review of James A. Harris’s “Hume: An Intellectual Biography”
New York Review of Books, 26 May 2016

 
Freedom, being and apricot cocktails
Review of Sarah Bakewell’s “At The Existentialist Café”
The Economist, 26 March 2016 
 
 
“Candide” and Leibniz’s garden
Did Candide’s garden come from Leibniz? A speculative scholarly footnote
Voltaire Foundation blog, 3 February 2015

 
The beauty of Queen Mary’s dolls’ house
An interview about a favourite object
Gilded Birds, August 2014
 
 
Let’s have a dialogue
Review of Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s “Plato at the Googleplex”
New York Times, 20 April 2014 
 
 
Know thy selfie
Two books on narcissism
The Economist, 20 March 2014
 
 
Such small portions
An essay on Jewish humour, a propos Ruth Wisse’s “No Joke”
New York Times, 2 June 2013
 
 
Where did the Book of Genesis come from?
Review of Ronald Hendel’s study of the first book of the bible
The Economist, 1 December 2012
 
 
Britain’s first modern philosopher
On Noel Malcolm’s edition of Hobbes’s masterwork
The Economist, 6 October 2012
 
 
It ain’t necessarily so
The hubris of evolutionary psychology
The New Yorker, 17 September 2012
 
 
Evolution and the mind: an author’s response
A reply to a critic
Salon, September 2012
 
 
Why does the world exist?
Review of Jim Holt’s book about the puzzle of existence
Daily Beast, 17 July 2012 
 
 
America the philosophical
Review of Carlin Romano’s book about America and philosophy
New York Times, 17 July 2012
 
 
Neurons v free will
The notion of a rational self is under attack again, this time from neuroscience
Intelligent Life, March/April 2012
 
 
Why life is so boring
Review of Peter Tooley’s “Boredom: A Lively History”
New York Times, 29 May 2011
 
 
Montaigne’s moment
An essay about essays, and Montaigne
New York Times, 13 March 2011
 
 
A lion in the undergrowth
Review of V. S. Ramachandran’s “The Tell-Tale Brain”
New York Times, 30 January 2011
  
 
Philosophy as inspiration
Review of James Miller’s “Examined Lives”
The Economist, 29 January 2011
 
 
The futility of fate
On David Foster Wallace’s senior thesis in philosophy
Financial Times, 4 December 2010 
 
 
The limits of science
Plenty of today’s scientific ideas will be discredited. Is this a problem for science?
Intelligent Life, 20 November 2010 
 
 
From classics to pop
Review of Alex Ross’s “Listen To This”
The Economist, 30 October 2010 
 
 
Order of creation
On Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow’s “The Grand Design”
The Economist, 11 September 2010
 
 
Win or lose
No voting system is flawless. But some are less democratic than others
The New Yorker, 26 July 2010
 
 
The art of the parody
Review of the “Oxford Book of Parodies”
The Economist, 15 July 2010
 
 
What do philosophers believe?
Decoding an unusual opinion poll
Intelligent Life, 26 March 2010
 
 
Right and left
Review of “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World” by Iain McGilchrist.
The Economist, 26 November 2009
 
 
Facts, errors and the Kindle
The printed word has an Achilles heel. Can the electronic reader help?
Intelligent Life, 4 September 2009
 
 
Less brutish, still short
Review of “The Age of Empathy” by Frans de Waal
The Economist, 3 September 2009 
 
 
Young philosophers
Review of Alison Gopnik’s “The Philosophical Baby”
New York Times, 6 August 2009
 
 
A nervous splendor
The Wittgenstein family had a genius for misery
The New Yorker, 30 March 2009
 
 
The descent of taste
Review of Dennis Dutton’s “The Art Instinct”
New York Times, 29 January 2009 
 
 
Madoff and me
Confessions of a journalist
The Economist’s Free Exchange blog, 31 December 2008
 
 
Giordano Bruno
Review of a biography by Ingrid Rowland of the philosopher-heretic
New York Times, 19 November 2008
 
 
My parrot, my self
New York Times, 11 October 2008
Talking parrots in life and literature: an essay 
 
 
Apes do it: the science of humour
The study of laughter has entered mainstream psychology
Intelligent Life, 28 June 2008
 
 
A love that dare not compute its name
An essay on falling in love with robots, Battlestar Galactica, and sex-toys
New York Times, 8 June 2008 
 
 
I’m a believer
Britain’s “most notorious atheist”, Antony Flew, appears to lose his unbelief
New York Times, 23 December 2007
 
 
Tales of music and the brain
Review of “Musicophilia” by Oliver Sacks
New York Times, 28 October 2007
 
 
Music, war and politics intertwined
Review of “The Rest is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century” by Alex Ross
The Economist, 25 October 2007
 
 
Atheists with attitude
Why do they hate Him?
The New Yorker, 14 May 2007
 
 
Think again
What did Descartes really know?
The New Yorker, 13 November 2006

 
Raising spirits
Review of Deborah Blum’s book on William James’s search for proof of life after death
New York Times, 20 August 2006

 
Postwar: picking up the pieces
Review of Tony Judt’s history of Europe since 1945
New York Times, 16 October 2005
 
 
The truth wars
Review of two books on truth by philosophers: Simon Blackburn and Michael Lynch
New York Times, 24 July 2005

 
The town of the talk (download)
A four-part special report on New York
The Economist, 19 February 2005
 
 
John Watling
Obituary in brief
The Economist, 26 July 2004 (published solely online)
 
 
When the lights went out in Europe
Review of “The Closing of the Western Mind” by Charles Freeman
New York Times, 15 February 2004
 
 
Bernard Williams, critic of moral philosophy
Obituary
The Economist, 26 June 2003
 
 
A lexicon of crazyology
Review of “Brewer’s Rogues, Villains & Eccentrics”, by William Donaldson
The Economist, 21 November 2002
 
 
Who wants to be a billionaire?
Review of “Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire” by Michael T. Kaufman
New York Times, 3 March 2002 
 
 
Goodness, graciousness
Review of “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues” by André Comte-Sponville
New York Times, 14 October 2001
 
 
Thinking hard
Review of Stephen Toulmin’s “Return to Reason”
Los Angeles Times, 19 August 2001
 
 
Willard Quine
Obituary
The Economist, 13 January 2001

 
God exists, philosophically
Review of Steven Nadler’s biography of Spinoza
New York Times, 18 July 1999
 
 
The postindustrial revolution
Review of Francis Fukuyama’s “The Great Disruption”
New York Times, 4 July 1999
  
 
Our crowd: the idea of the West
Review of David Gress’s “From Plato to Nato”
New York Times, 2 August 1998

 
Making sense of reference
Review of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Economist, 9 July 1998
  
 
Idea man
Review of George Steiner’s autobiography
New York Times, 12 April 1998
 
 
The philosophers that Sophie skipped (download)
In defense of Anglo-American philosophy
The Economist, 7 December 1996

 
The new science
Review of Steven Shapin’s “The Scientific Revolution”
New York Times, 17 November 1996 
 
 
Future shock
Review of Lester C. Thurow’s “The Future of Capitalism”
New York Times, April 14 1996
 
 
Famous long ago
Review of “Hypatia of Alexandria” by Maria Dzielska
New York Times, 27 August 1995
 
 
Why can’t we behave?
Review of Gertrude Himmelfarb’s “The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values”
New York Times, 19 February 1995
 
 
What’s on your mind, kid?
Review of “The Philosophy of Childhood” by Gareth B. Matthews
New York Times, October 23 1994
 
 
Did Sartre ever exist?
Review of “Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre: The Remaking of a Twentieth-Century Legend” by Kate and Edward Fullbrook
New York Times, 23 January 1994
 
 
Why do you do the things you do?
Review of Robert Nozick’s “The Nature of Rationality”
New York Times, 22 August 1993
 
 
The lesson of the drunk and the streetlight
Review of John Searle’s “The Rediscovery of the Mind”
New York Times, 11 October 1992
 
 
Brainstorming
Review of “Theories of the Mind” by Stephen Priest
New York Times, 23 August 1992 
 
 
The most talked-about philosopher
Richard Rorty and two volumes of his essays
New York Times, 2 June 1991

 
Heidegger for fun and profit
A report from Berkeley’s “Applied Heidegger” conference
New York Times, 7 January 1990 
 
​
Japes of the great
Almost every statement is false in this review of a non-existent book: “April is the Cruellest Month: The History and Meaning of All Fools’ Day,” purportedly by Erich Merkwürdigliebe
The Economist, 2 April 1988
 

Too bard to be true
An article about a sonnet that it is possibly by Shakespeare, in the form of a sonnet that is certainly not by Shakespeare
The Economist, 30 November 1985
© 2020, ANTHONY GOTTLIEB. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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