For Aristotle, excellence is not an act but a habit, and Hume regards habit as 'the great guide of life'. However, for Proust habit is problematic: 'if habit is a second nature, it prevents us from knowing our first.'

What is habit? Do habits turn us into machines or free us to do more creative things? Should religious faith be habitual? Does habit help or hinder the practice of philosophy? Why do Luther, Spinoza, Kant, Kierkegaard and Bergson all criticise habit? If habit is both a blessing and a curse, how can we live well in our habits?

In this thought-provoking book Clare...

What is humanism and why does it matter? Is there any doctrine every humanist must hold? If it rejects religion, what does it offer in its place? Have the twentieth century s crimes against humanity spelled the end for humanism?

On Humanism is a timely and powerfully argued philosophical defence of humanism. It is also an impassioned plea that we turn to ourselves, not religion, if we want to answer Socrates age-old question: what is the best kind of life to lead? Although humanism has much in common with science, Richard Norman shows that it is far from a denial of the more mysterious,...

What is photography? Is it primarily a source of knowledge about the world or an art? Many have said the former, because it records the world automatically, others the latter because it embodies human subjectivity. Can it photography be both or must we choose?

In On Photography: A Philosophical Inquiry Diarmuid Costello examines these fascinating questions and more. In so doing he introduces some of the fundamental topics and debates about the nature of photography, with the help of photographic images from Paul Strand, Lee Friedlander, James Welling, Jeff Wall, and...

What is photography? Is it primarily a source of knowledge about the world or an art? Many have said the former, because it records the world automatically, others the latter because it embodies human subjectivity. Can it photography be both or must we choose?

In On Photography: A Philosophical Inquiry Diarmuid Costello examines these fascinating questions and more. In so doing he introduces some of the fundamental topics and debates about the nature of photography, with the help of photographic images from Paul Strand, Lee Friedlander, James Welling, Jeff Wall, and...

Can the internet solve the problem of mass education, and bring human beings to a new level of community? Drawing on a diverse array of thinkers from Plato to Kierkegaard, On the Internet argues that there is much in common between the disembodied, free floating web and Descartes' separation of mind and body. Hubert Dreyfus also shows how Kierkegaard's insights into the origins of a media-obsessed public anticipate the web surfer, blogger and chat room. Drawing on studies of the isolation experienced by many internet users and the insights of philosopher such as Descartes and...