The ideas that shape us
Essays on history, thought and the human condition.
Read chronologically or by theme.
History· Philosophy · Culture
Aristotle: The Philosopher Who Inspired Monty Python
I’m a man of a certain age who, like many 1970s students, loved Monty Python. Hearing “Aristotle” makes me, Pavlov-like, add: “was a bugger for the bottle” — a line from The Philosophers’ Song, a silly pub singalong that name-checked Western philosophy over beer.
The Dangerous Art of Asking Questions
Socrates perfected the art of irritating people by asking endless questions. It’s a great way to understand but in his case it annoyed too many people and he paid with his perceived annoyance with his life.
The Man Who Tried to Save the World with Good Manners
Everyone wants a better world, but most of us hope someone else will sort it out. Confucius had a better idea. He said order starts close to home — in how we speak, act, and treat one another.
How a Triangle Changed Everything
The world seems chaotic: noise without rhythm, movement without meaning. Pythagoras saw otherwise. He found pattern and proportion — everything as number: harmony hidden in motion, maths beneath music, patterns behind every note, shape and star.
The Man Who Thought Everything Was Made of Water
The world once seemed senseless: storms, plagues, misfortune blamed on angry gods. Thales proposed a different idea — the universe governed by observable forces, not moods. He argued everything arose from water. It sounds odd now, but it was the first attempt to explain the world without Olympus — the birth of reason from a single question: “Shall we think about it?”
The Buddha
Before Plato built his Republic or Descartes began doubting his own existence, the Buddha was already onto something: that maybe the mind is both the problem and the key.
Big Ideas (Some I Understand, Some I Don’t and Some That Make My Brain Explode)
At the time of writing this (2025), I’ve been on this lump of rock we call home for seventy-one summers. In January 2026, I’ll be entering my seventy-second winter, and I hope there are many more left. But who knows?