My ideal of conversation that includes wide representation of perspectives, informed by the consensus view of current experts, pursued with an attempt to find a position with which all can live, brings the expert and the public dimensions together.

conclude, what Thomas Mann really wanted was a limited physical relationship with beautiful young men: the opportunity to gaze at them, an occasional touch, a restrained kiss. That isn't a surrogate for what he'd like to have if he were somehow free from social constraints. It's what the young Platen wanted, it's what he wanted - and it's what his Aschenbach wants.

The more you read the novella, the more you should wonder, I think, which judgments are to be taken as bedrock.

There are actually two separate issues here. The first is whether (as ancient philosophers and Nietzsche assume) only the privileged elite can live a worthwhile life. The second is whether it's possible to fulfill the roles of both serious artist and upstanding citizen. It seems to me that philosophy can dissect both questions, by delineating clearly the anatomy of the good life and the structural conditions of the roles.

It may be hyperbolic to declare that Shakespeare teaches us more about being human than all the natural scientists combined.

So my methodological approach is to draw on many different features in highlighting different facets of the novella (and the opera and the film).

If the intuition-mongering were abandoned, would that be the end of philosophy? It would be the end of a certain style of philosophy - a style that has cut philosophy off, not only from the humanities but from every other branch of inquiry and culture.