Marsilio Ficino Renaissance Man
Valery Rees looks at the Florentine scholar Marsilio Ficino and finds a man whose work still speaks to us today.
Philosophy
Edmund Burke, Political Writer and Philosopher Dies
Richard Cavendish charts the life and work of Edmund Burke, who died on July 9th, 1797.
What is Fascism?
In the second instalment of a two part article, Roger Eatwell chooses between rival definitions of a slippery word
What is Fascism?
In the first instalment of a two-part article, Roger Eatwell looks at rival definitions of a slippery word.
Jonathan Edwards' Sublime Book of Nature
Gordon Miller looks at the 18th-century American philosopher, who influenced the transcendentalists and other 'green prophets'.
Theory and Practice: Democracy and the Philosophers
Can democracy, past or present, benefit from the ministrations of the philosophers? Benjamin Barber observes the claim that Plato's persona of Socrates is a democratic one.
Hungary's Philosopher King: Matthias Corvinus 1458-90
Valery Rees surveys the life of the ruler who put 15th-century Hungary on the map, both culturally and geographically, but whose efforts may have put an intolerable strain on the body politic.
The City and the Democratic Ideal
François Hartog on how urban living has coincided with the advocacy of popular rule from Plato through to Machiavelli, Rousseau and 20th-century sociologists.
Tocqueville Revisited
Hugh Brogan nominates Alexis de Tocqueville rather than Karl Marx as a useful guide to the new world order of history in the 90s.
Scotland's Neglected Enlightenment
Glasgow's role in the Enlightenment is often overshadowed by Edinburgh, but Roy Campbell shows that the impetus came from the West with the pioneering work done in the city from the early years of the eighteenth century.