The Shrink & The Sage: Fear

"Our instinctive emotional reactions may be very poor guides to what should really concern us. Whether we are wrong to be afraid or simply fearful of the wrong things, we would all do well to question what the proper objects of fear are. If we do so, we might find that most of our anxieties are not fears to be conquered, but distractions to be ignored as much as possible."

Latest FT Weekend magazine column (published 19/20 February)

The Shrink & The Sage: Our inner critic

"The best philosophical inner critic is neither nice nor nasty, neither gentle nor harsh. In fact, it’s a critic that has nothing to do with you as a person at all. It’s all about the beliefs. If that sounds coldly objective, that’s because it is, and all the better for it."

Latest column in the FT's Weekend Magazine (12/13 February)

Is Radical Politics Still Possible?

An MP3 recording of my recent talk in Indianapolis (New York redux) is available here.

Why the Science vs. Religion Debate Won't Go Away

There is a decent (not excellent) quality mps download of my recent talk at Transylvania University at this link.

In Pursuit of Happiness - BBC Radio Four

I'm one of the interviewees on this programme, which is available to listen to online until Thursday.

The Shrink & The Sage: Superstition

"Superstition is a brilliant song, but Stevie Wonder got it badly wrong when he sang, 'When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer'. If only it were that easy. Superstition persists because believing in things that we just don’t understand is absolutely essential."

Another FT Weekend Magazine column (29/30 January) that I've been slow to post.

The Shrink & The Sage: Choice

"I don’t buy the idea that our essential problem is that we have a surfeit of choice. The craze for reducing our options seems to me to be the latest of a long series of flights from freedom."

Belated posting of January 22/23 FT Weekend Magazine column.

Bad arguments - St Louis, 4 February

Talking about The Duck that Won The Lottery (Do They Think You're Stupid? in UK paperback) with the St Louis Skeptics this Friday. Full details here.

Why America Should Embrace Secular Values - Chicago, 2 January

Weather permitting - and at the moment it looks like it might not - I'll be giving this talk on Wednesday. Full details here. Apologies for the full title, by the way. I agreed to "zing it up" but actually it doesn't make much sense to say "No Believers Need Apply".