Ludwig Wittgenstein

A few weeks ago, my friend the geneticist David McConnell wrote a stimulating article in these pages on the supposed chasm between science and religio(...)

The visit of Pope Francis to Ireland has led to calls for a new type of dialogue between religious and non-religious people. Some Catholics claim to b(...)

Almost 30 years ago, we idly mentioned to a friend that we had an idea about writing a book about Irish food. “You write it and I’ll publish it,” he (...)

If you’re still feeling numb after the political events of 2017 take note of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s advice: “Just improve yourself; that is all you can(...)

Photographer Walter Pfeiffer once met a man from Roundstone who told him “Connemara is grey”. “Grey it certainly is on countless days in winter and o(...)

One day in 1970 Ralph Steadman was out on a boat, covering the America’s Cup yacht race and feeling seasick. The illustrator’s companion on the water(...)

In some ways it seems a bit of a puzzle that in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which was published a century ago, James Joyce’s alter ego, (...)

World Philosophy Day, which takes place this Thursday, is one of the more neglected anniversaries in the calendar. Last year it fell on the same dat(...)

Ludwig Wittgenstein is reputed to have said that a good philosophical work could be written entirely of jokes but by praising humour he was in a mino(...)

Academic spats make great spectator sport. Take the evolutionarily sparring contest between Richard Dawkins and EO Wilson, which centres on how natur(...)