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Perfection

Knowing when to stop is one of the most difficult decisions of the creative process. It is not always easy to judge when a work is finished. Perhaps a painting needs one or two more brush strokes in a few places, a poem could do with an extra word added and a couple of them …

Pro-creation

Everyone does it alone, whether or not they would admit to it. It’s even better when done with another and there are some cases where it happens in groups. At all times it brings enjoyment. When done together with others there is perhaps the greatest pleasure, sense of achievement and satisfaction. You can do it …

What Science Cannot Teach Us

If I had a hammer, there’s lots I could do with it. I could crush a walnut, for one thing. But I might hang a picture on the wall, knock a bulge out of my car’s wheel arch, break some toffee, start a carpentry project. I could also use it to bash someone’s brains in. …

Censored

John Stuart Mill’s view of liberty was largely right, especially where it concerned freedom of speech and expression. We ought to have nothing to fear from the public airing of views with which we disagree, for instance, for that exposes their stupidity. Besides, suppression of opposing views is rightly taken to be a mark of …

Disco Potential

A year or more ago someone remarked that they didn’t know what musical universe I inhabited, given that I’d expressed a diverse range of likes. It’s true; I like all sorts. The genre doesn’t matter as long as it’s good. But in my youth, there was one kind of music I just couldn’t appreciate: disco. …

Tårnbygningen

On the campus of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences stands a collection of striking old buildings. One of them – Tårnbygningen – houses the business school and the philosophers. The name means Tower Building. I am very lucky to be a visiting professor there and find it a joy every day I walk towards …

Comedy is no Laughing Matter

‘The art of comedy’ is an expression that sometimes gets used but I’ve never known how seriously it’s meant to be taken. It’s far from obvious that comedy is respected as a credible art form and, just as the theatre of war is not a real theatre, talk of the art of comedy does not …

Playing with the Possible

The future contains many possibilities. While not everything is within our control, quite a lot is. We have a say in which of the possibilities become real. Not everyone sees all that is open to them, however. Some have a greater imagination than others and can see more of the possible. Imagination is a source …

Solitude

A precondition for much great art is solitude. We all have a tendency towards sociability, communication and laughter, yet this tendency must be curbed if one is to make progress on worthy artistic endeavours. Writing, painting, composing, sculpting, choreographing, philosophizing and designing will all require deep concentration at some point, best achieved in loneliness. For …

The Metaphysics of Chess

As soon as the necessities of life are secured, we turn to the arts but also to games. Arts and games are alike in having no immediate practical value but their very pointlessness reveals their intrinsic value to us. Games are sometimes called pastimes. It might look as if their purpose is merely to pass …