Even if you just want to make a simple clothing item for yourself or go for a long hike in the forest - something we imagine requires absolutely no resources - you have to go to the store and buy a lot of stuff, and probably use a car.

We use and need to use both systems in complex political societies, and we oscillate in our commitments, because both oligarchy and rule by the will of masses have their bad points, as the ancient philosophers all knew.

Even if the gods did exist, the Epicureans argued, they didn't care about us. Rather, everything comes from nature, and all that really exists are atoms and void, moving and congregating.

People formerly seemed unable to evaluate a woman's c.v. or to accept a range of personal and communicative styles from the exuberant and confident to the sober and pedantic. It's much better than it was, and a number of male philosophers have been extraordinarily helpful in detecting and criticising everyday sexism in the profession.

The Epicureans denied that the gods had created the world and also denied that they played any role in it.

For the chemists, who wanted to manufacture new medicines and elixirs and transform base substances into noble ones, the notion that there was no metaphysical barrier to doing so - it was just a matter of getting the particles into new arrangements - was encouraging. That was the Baconian programme.

You can find many philosophy papers on the themes of 'love' and 'friendship,' most of which are cheerful and somewhat anodyne; you don't find many on the loss of friends, relatives, and lovers from death or alienation, though it happens all the time.