A talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well is the chief instrument of cultural change.

Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative.

I illustrate with a quotation from the atheist philosopher Richard Rorty, who died recently and is, I suspect, now having a lengthy conversation with his maker. Rorty argued that secular professors ought “to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own.

Had there been no Plato, the Christians would have had a harder time selling the idea that all God really wanted from us was fraternal love.

The difference between people and ideas is... only superficial.

At 12, I knew that the point of being human was to spend one's life fighting social injustice.

The usual picture of Socrates is of an ugly little plebeian who inspired a handsome young nobleman to write long dialogues on large topics.