Aesthetics

Five deaths in August: a heavy month for philosophy

Anthony Kenny, Cain Todd, David Charles, Tom Rockmore and Gabriele Taylor all died within a single month. Between them they stood for lines of work running from Aristotelian scholarship to German idealism, and from moral psychology to aesthetics.

The 2026 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy goes to Laurie Anderson

The Inamori Foundation has honoured the artist known for work joining electronic music, performance, poetry and film. The ceremony takes place in Japan on 10 November.

This Day in Philosophy — 14 August: the death of Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht, the founder of epic theatre, died on 14 August 1956. His 'alienation effect' opened an argument, still unsettled, about whether art can make an audience think.

This Day in Philosophy — 13 August: the birth of John Logie Baird

The Scottish inventor John Logie Baird, the first man to make television work, was born on 13 August 1888. Once it became possible to see at a distance, the argument about perception and reality changed too.

This Day in Philosophy — 7 August: Tagore dies, Goodman is born

Rabindranath Tagore died in Calcutta on 7 August 1941. On the same day in 1906, Nelson Goodman, who rebuilt the philosophy of induction and of art, was born.

Nussbaum's new book: opera and political freedom

Oxford University Press published Martha Nussbaum's 'The Republic of Love: Opera and Political Freedom' on 16 April 2026. Nussbaum reads opera, from Mozart to Verdi, as a field of political thought.

Martha Nussbaum