Philosophy

For two thousand years poets, writes Michael Grant, composers and painters have drawn upon the great archetypal myth of Orpheus—one of the myths that will always stir humanity.

S.G.F. Brandon describes how the earliest representatives of mankind were concerned with three fundamental problems— birth, death and the supply of food—which they attempted to solve by magico-religious means.

G.R. Crone analyses the influences on, and development of, geographical thought over centuries.

Frank Prochaska has made a remarkable discovery in the personal library of John Stuart Mill. It proves that Mill not only read the works of his American contemporary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, but was surprisingly harsh in his judgement of him. 

Once described as “the first Whig,” the great Christian philosopher of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas, is here introduced by Maurice Cranston as an exponent of order, justice and government.

J.H.M. Salmon explains how spiritual values and political objectives were deeply in conflict throughout the long reign of Louis XIV.

Although the theory of Divine Right may seem difficult nowadays to take seriously, W.H. Greenleaf describes how it has exerted a profound influence upon the thoughts and lives of many Englishmen.

S.G.F. Brandon shows how the idea of a posthumous moral judgment, when the sheep will be divided from the goats, is deeply rooted in our cultural history.

Ernestro Landi assesses Machiavelli, his theories as well as the life of the historical character. Translated by Maurice Cranston.

After the sack of Rome by the Goths in the year 410, the Roman world experienced some of the unease that afflicts Western civilization today; S.G.F. Brandon describes how the late Roman world found assuagement in the writings of Saint Augustine.