Posts by Paul Monk
05
Jan
This article is part of our ‘From the vault’ series of summer reading. It was originally published in the Winter 2017 edition of Austra...
22
Sep
Salman Rushdie and freedom of speech
Salman Rushdie was assailed by 24-year-old Muslim fanatic Hadi Matar on 12 August as he was about to give a public lecture in New York....
07
Jul
Reason and unreason in the critique of Western civilisation
Douglas Murray is a wonderfully free spirit who lucidly tackles the manias of political correctness with erudition, panache and limpid ...
11
Apr
Je Suis Mill
This is an edited extract from a dinner speech to the Liberal Club of the University of Melbourne, delivered on 10 December 2021
Abo...
15
Mar
Are we a failed species?
A very old friend and longtime mentor of mine, now 85 years of age, recently expressed the gloomy opinion that Homo sapiens is ‘a faile...
01
Mar
Ukraine crisis: The Russian leader’s vision of the past
The day that Vladimir Putin sent Russian forces into Ukraine, President Biden spoke publicly about the sheer mendacity of Putin’s propa...
28
Jan
Suicide as catastrophe and as calculation
The August 2021 issue of Harper’s magazine has a cover story headed ‘What are the odds? The Troubled Quest to Predict Suicide’. The ess...
16
Jan
A reflection on Karl Popper’s insights into the origins of scientific method and the pre-Socratics
If I was asked to teach an undergraduate course on Rationality 101, I would begin by introducing the students to the work of Karl Poppe...
28
Dec
Reason in Western civilisation
For years now, I have heard people speak sceptically, even dismissively, about ‘Western logic’ or ‘Cartesian rationalism’, as if the il...
21
Dec
This matter of Christmas and hope
On 19 December, the ABC online ran an essay by Stan Grant under the title ‘With Christianity receding and many abandoning hope, toda...
02
Oct
The resignation of Peter Boghossian: What it shows about academic illiberalism
Peter Boghossian is a philosopher and teacher of critical thinking and ethics. He is an old friend of several members of the Rationalis...
25
Jun
Let’s briefly imagine
Let's, briefly, presuppose you hadn't fled,
Hadn't frozen in the headlights of my interest,
Then dashed off, in your maidenly dis...