I have recently read both Pierre Hadot’s Philosophy as a Way of Life and Sloterdijk’s The Art of Philosophy. Both books place at their centers an ideal of the philosopher as one who is able to lift themselves from their particular circumstances and adopt a perspective from eternity, blankly reflecting how things are and perhaps… Continue reading

Niall Ferguson’s The Square and the Tower is a caution against seeing our new, networked world as an unalloyed blessings. Human history (and NF’s book) is filled with examples of networks and hierarchies, many worth celebrating and equally many worth decrying. NF’s central worry is that our latest networks make us vulnerable to economic and… Continue reading