ARTICLES
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
The square and the tower
Review of Niall Ferguson on networks in history
The Guardian, 14 October 2017
The tolerant philosopher
Pierre Bayle, the forgotten hero of the Enlightenment
New Statesman, 12 August 2016
Who was David Hume? (download)
Review of James A. Harris’s “Hume: An Intellectual Biography”
New York Review of Books, 26 May 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
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
The futility of fate
On David Foster Wallace’s senior thesis in philosophy
Financial Times, 4 December 2010
Thinking hard
Review of Stephen Toulmin’s “Return to Reason”
Los Angeles Times, 19 August 2001
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
The square and the tower
Review of Niall Ferguson on networks in history
The Guardian, 14 October 2017
The tolerant philosopher
Pierre Bayle, the forgotten hero of the Enlightenment
New Statesman, 12 August 2016
Who was David Hume? (download)
Review of James A. Harris’s “Hume: An Intellectual Biography”
New York Review of Books, 26 May 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
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
The futility of fate
On David Foster Wallace’s senior thesis in philosophy
Financial Times, 4 December 2010
Thinking hard
Review of Stephen Toulmin’s “Return to Reason”
Los Angeles Times, 19 August 2001