The Books Interview: Rebecca Goldstein

"As a non-believer, what's the reason for not being an atheist that gives you most pause for thought?"

Q&A with philosopher and novelist Rebecca Goldstein in this week's New Statesman

Video of talk on reason in Mexico

Here's a twenty-minute video of my talk on reason and rationality at La Ciudad de las Ideas festival in Puebla, Mexico.

It's not for the state to forgive

"To prioritise the rehabilitation of violent criminals who knew what they had done and posed a danger to the public just because we thought it good to forgive them would be a terrible mistake. More than that: it would be unforgiveable."

Latest post at Comment is Free, which went up on Wednesday.

Gerrard's Cross - 12 April

Giving a talk mainly on Should You Judge This Book by Its Cover? at the Jolly Cricketers Pub at 7.30. Wine included! Full details here. (Click on next page arrow at bottom of page if not visible)

Addiction: should we penalise or treat? - 8 April

This free UWE public event will bring together specialists from different fields to discuss addiction. The distinguished panel includes: Dr Nick Airey, an NHS psychiatrist specialising in addiction, Dr Giles Pearson, (Philosophy, University of Bristol), Prof Moira Plant (Co-Director, Alcohol and Health Research Unit, UWE) and Dr Jon Webber, (Philosophy, Cardiff University). The event is chaired by Dr Julian Baggini, editor of The Philosophers? Magazine. The event is organised by Dr Havi Carel, Philosophy, UWE and is sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research.

Full details here

Oxford Literary Festival - 21 March

Giving a talk mainly on Should You Judge This Book by Its Cover? this Sunday at 12 pm. Full details here.

Goodies behaving badly

"The feeling of being pure is a moral contaminant. In ethical terms, the best never think that they are the best, and those that believe themselves to be on the side of the angels are often the worst devils."

Latest post at the Guardian's Comment is Free

Too clever by half

"In Britain, cleverness is regarded as at once praiseworthy and not wholly admirable. Perhaps that is why Rebecca Goldstein has not yet achieved the same level of success here as she has done in her native United States. Her latest work of fiction, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, seems designed to keep things that way. Try to sum it up and it sounds less like a novel than an IQ test."

Review of Rebecca Goldstein's new novel in the New Statesman.

Basingstoke debate - Yesterday

Apologies to anyone who went to a debate I was supposed to take part in yesterday. I've trawled all the emails sent to me by the organisers and the only date I was given was March 12, which is today. The web page for the debate does have down March 11, but when I looked at that, I didn't think to check if the date was right and had no reason to think it may have changed. It has to go down as "one of those things" but I'm very sorry for anyone who made the effort to go and was let down.

March podcast

In this four-star edition, I talk over the background hubbub of hotel bars and conference lunch tables with Jerry Fodor about what Darwin got wrong; Ben Goldacre on good philosophy and bad science; Michael Sandel on the problem with secular liberalism; and Philip Zimbardo on good people gone bad.

Click here to listen or download now, or download from