Thursday, August 21, 2008

Philosophical musings

My review of Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog is in the new Time Out New York.

That a novel in which an entire chapter is focused on dismissing phenomenology would be a best-seller in France isn't surprising: This is a country where every spring, the announcement of the philosophy questions at the baccalaureate exam makes the news. Samples from this year's crop:

- Can art transform our awareness of the real?
- analysis of an excerpt from Schopenhauer's The world as Will and Representation
- Is scientific knowledge of the living possible?
- Is it easier to know the other than yourself?
- Can one desire without suffering?

Talk amongst yourselves…

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