From time to time, it is worth wandering around the fuzzy border regions of what you do, if only to remind yourself that no human activity is an island.

Philosophy is at its most engaged when it is impure. What is being recovered from the Ancient Greek model is not some lost idea of philosophy's pure essence, but the idea that philosophy is mixed up with everything else.

The very act of questioning whether you exist proves you do, because you must be there for the doubt to be entertained in the first place.

Trying to keep up with health advice can feel like surfing the Net for weather forecasts: what you find is always changing, often contradictory and rarely encouraging.

Big sporting events and spectacles might give the national morale a shot in the arm, but they are too transient and taste-specific to stand as robust symbols of nationhood.

I'm not one of these people who is sour about academia. I'm very lucky not to be in academia, but I am an absolute parasite. While I was writing my book on comparative philosophy I was drawing on some fantastic scholars - university based people. The academy is absolutely necessary, but there should also be a role for those bringing it together. It's such a frustration sometimes.

Being a good neighbour is about compassion, which is as warm-blooded as justice is cool-headed.