Symposium

The demise of socialism as an emancipatory vision poses a problem for the Left. It is not that it lacks good ideas for social changes and public policies that would improve life for most people, but that these proposals have not been coherently organized in a way that makes for a compelling ideal...

To reflect on sport is to reflect on more than the direct lessons of athletic experience; it is also to confront some of the widest questions of ethical life...

When this question is squarely and thoughtfully faced, scientists will agree that science exists for man, and not for itself alone...

Privacy seems to have become such a naturalized sacred right in the liberal imaginary that it no longer seems necessary to make a new positive case on its behalf ... Yet we need to know just what it is we love.

It seems beyond dispute that the goal of politics is to ensure security and prosperity; the only question is what means will achieve the ends. But could it be that when we understand the goal of politics as security and prosperity, we underestimate it?

Why can’t we determine what poetry is for simply by asking what it does?

The problem with marriage, we all know, is the endlessness of it. Plenty of things we do will have long-term repercussions, but in what other situation do you promise to do something for the rest of your life?

Hegel claimed that art can no longer compete with philosophy. But can film take us to places not available in theory?

Conservatives have traditionally spoken of themselves as the voices of truth, goodness and beauty drowned by the tide of modern revolution. They have been by nature pessimistic, not merely or even chiefly about the probable fortunes of any utopian schemes for perfection of a dual-natured man...

Moral battles over how humans should treat other animals are usually waged between those who defend our right to use natural resources and those who defend animals’ right to live free of exploitation; the two sides, unsurprisingly, argue on different terms. They remain entrenched because lives and traditions are at stake, and because each is rooted in a fundamental truth.