The study of art, culture and nature.
Thank you, Heather Bennett, for sending us this beautiful painting. I appreciate that you have not posed any specific questions about this picture. This not only gives me a lot of flexibility on how to approach it, but it is also very respectful to art itself. Is it not that art can produce its meaning […]
What do you make of this picture? Read More
Thank you, Max Palmer, for a great question! There is a famous nightmare that was had by one of Freud’s patients and that was subsequently interpreted by a French psychoanalyst, Lacan, and more recently by the popular Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek. The patient had this nightmare after falling asleep beside the coffin of his little
We have nightmares. Can we have daymares? Read More
Thank you, Jesal Panchal, for such an important question! As humans we always tend to look at the things that surround us as if they are humans too. As humans, we often (consciously or not) hurt one another, but can objects, on their own, hurt us too? A glass of wine never hurt anyone, right?
Why do the things we love – wine, for instance – hurt us the most? Read More
Thank you, Allan Getliff, for such a paradoxical question! There is an implication here that scary movies are somehow a bad thing – that being scared is a bad thing. That notion makes us question why we should enjoy something that is bad. As an avowed horror fan, I have considered this before, and have
Why do we enjoy watching scary movies? Read More
Thank you, Angus Nimmo, for a great question! I only hope that your assumption that we can provide an answer is well founded… An assumption can be offensive precisely because it is an assumption. If you assume something about someone, it’s because you do not know whether what you are assuming is correct. Though your
Are assumptions offensive if they are correct? Read More
