Philosophy of Religion

This Day in Philosophy — 28 August: Augustine's death and two new sermons

Augustine died on 28 August 430 in Hippo, a city then under siege. Sixteen centuries later, a discovery announced this year has brought two previously unknown sermons of his to light. Goethe was born on the same day in 1749.

Comte-Sponville's last words on life and death: 'The Opportunity to Live'

The final volume of a trilogy thirty years in the making turns on a single question: is going on living a principle, or an opportunity that depends on circumstances? Earlier this year the French philosopher put the same question to the limits of medicine.

This Day in Philosophy — 26 August: the death of William James

William James, the founding figure of American philosophy, died at his New Hampshire home on 26 August 1910. The same date in 1728 saw the birth of Johann Heinrich Lambert, the first man to prove that pi is irrational.

This Day in Philosophy — 24 August: the death of Simone Weil

She gave up a philosophy post to work in a factory, went to Spain to fight, and died in England at thirty-four. Simone Weil lost her life on 24 August 1943, leaving behind unfinished notebooks and a single concept: attention.

Rorty's writings on religion to appear as a book in September

Columbia University Press publishes in September the texts in which Richard Rorty looks for common ground between philosophy and religion. The introduction is by Gianni Vattimo, the foreword by Jeffrey Robbins.

This Day in Philosophy — 21 August: the death of Alexander of Hales

Alexander of Hales, the Franciscan theologian who changed the shape of scholastic teaching at the University of Paris by making Peter Lombard's Sentences a regular textbook, died in the city on 21 August 1245.

This Day in Philosophy — 19 August: the death of Blaise Pascal

The mathematician, physicist and thinker Blaise Pascal died on 19 August 1662 at the age of thirty-nine. What survived was the notes for an unfinished book: the Pensées.

This Day in Philosophy — 13 August: the death of Jeremy Taylor

Jeremy Taylor, whose writings on conscience shaped English moral thought, died on 13 August 1667. His defence of toleration was written in the years of the civil war.

Nietzsche's genealogy: asking what our values are worth

The Genealogy does not set out to refute morality; it reminds us that morality has a history. Master and slave, ressentiment, bad conscience and the ascetic ideal — and the long afterlife of the method, from Nietzsche to Foucault.

Friedrich Nietzsche