“... warning: his history of metaphysics is not what you get in books on the history of philosophy. It may not be until page 379 that the penny will drop, for there Rée seems to say in passing that metaphysics consists of ‘the more or less unconscious myths, maxims and metaphors we live by’, Oh. One of the pleasures of the book is that its topics are made ...”

“... objects of moral concern. We see also, reading between the lines, the birth of a cruder idea which may be described as the Mediterranean macho paradigm, the notion that virility depends on being on top and that the gender or even species of what is underneath is immaterial. This alternative view of sexuality, a folk view still extant and not limited to the ...”

“... To worry in this way, you need to take seriously the question whether our descriptions of Reality may not be all too human, all too influenced by our hopes and fears. It helps to anguish about whether Reality (and therefore Truth as well) may not stand aloof, beyond the reach of the sentences in which we formulate our ...”

“... for not giving any – as well as being admirably genial. After all, says Aldiss, the definition may be wrong, but it doesn’t matter: ‘we can modify it as we go along.’ The definition is as follows: ‘Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of ...”

“... euphemism, found in the Spectator, this time referring to the former Kate Middleton: ‘She may still have her V-plates intact … the age-old requisite for future queen consorts.’ The equation of young women and toilets is gross and the far side of misogyny but it’s only to be expected in a tampophiliac family with a fondness for ...”

“... its outline distinct or was it so brilliant that outline could not be perceived. In other words I may say did it look like the moon definite in form or like a large bright fire at a distance quite indefinite except as a centre of light? Did it distinctly cut ducks & drakes on the surface of the lake? Were its bounds perceived & traced by the eye? Were any ...”

“... sums are involved, the extent of his risk aversion). The microdynamics of the social interaction may be significant: even when playing with strangers, the figure one cuts in their eyes may matter. Nevertheless, a simple conclusion is that players of the ultimatum game are oriented to a norm that enjoins ‘fairness’, and ...”

“... meantime, Chernobyl’s number four reactor went into meltdown. I remember, in late April or early May 1986, looking out of our back door at the rain falling on the garden and wondering if it had blown in from the east, laced with strontium-90, and if it was safe to go out in it. At school we read Norman Nicholson’s poem about the Windscale fire of ...”

“... was a passion. It was to do with recovering lost worlds from the fragments left to us, and critics may well be right to link this passion to the early deaths of both his parents. It can be life’s greatest blessing to stumble on a vocation whose rhythm fits so nicely with one’s most secret preoccupations. It can also be a curse.Even in Tolkien’s ...”

“... they believe, would be contrary to God’s will. Neo-conservative gentiles such as John Bolton; Robert Bartley, the former Wall Street Journal editor; William Bennett, the former secretary of education; Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former UN ambassador; and the influential columnist George Will are also steadfast supporters. The US form of government offers ...”

“... by Terence Patrick Dolan in A Dictionary of Hiberno-English, means ‘wholly, completely’ and may be compared to the Irish phrase ar fad, particularly in its positioning at the end of a sentence.* There’s a world of difference between the phrase ‘you’re altogether too thin-skinned’ and ‘you’re too thin-skinned altogether.’ The latter, Dolan ...”

“... not just in it?’ Nagel says he’s ‘using the term “religious temperament” in a way that may seem illegitimate to those who are genuinely religious’, but it won’t seem illegitimate to those engaged in what Johnston calls the ‘truly religious … life’, only to most of those who are ordinarily thought of as religious, those who are counted as ...”

“... and his ingenious use of the materials to hand make the book something of a tour de force. He may at times overreach himself in his desire to overturn the conventional ‘wisdom’, and not all his claims will withstand critical scrutiny, but these are comparatively small flaws which scarcely detract from the magnitude of his accomplishment. Foucault is ...”

“... law of narrative order’ as an adequate way of construing the meaning of a life. Babies may be seen to entail stories because they embody the tyranny of linear causation – ‘first this happened and then that happened.’ They mock our sense of possibility. Like murders, they tell us that what’s done cannot be undone. They foreclose choice and ...”

“... century, shortly after the Queen’s Hall opened as a new musical venue in 1893. As such, they may be regarded as a classic instance of what is sometimes called ‘invented tradition’, where venerable antiquity is less in evidence than is often popularly supposed; and where change and adaptation are at least as important as continuity and survival, even ...”