Latest thinking

The drugs don't work. Or do they?

Blog

24 Jun 2011

Matthew Taylor

Across the developing world there is an explosion in the use of drugs to treat mental illness. But is there really an increase in mental ill health and do these drugs work? 

Are we Neuromaniacs?

Blog

23 Jun 2011

Jonathan Rowson

I am bored by reading people who are allies, people of roughly the same views.  What is interesting is to read the enemy; because the enemy penetrates the defences. - Isaiah Berlin

In deepest empathy

Blog

15 Jun 2011

Matthew Taylor

Look, this rubbish joke thing is going to go on until you tell me to stop. I will only desist if a majority of my readers say so, which means an e-petition comprising at least five names. Until then…….

Half-baked ideas and fully baked jokes.

Blog

14 Jun 2011

Matthew Taylor

Oh dear – the only thing stopping me from entirely indulging by habit of making up rubbish jokes was a total lack of reader reinforcement. But now I fear I have it in the form of the first even half pleasant thing ever said about me in the Londoners’ Diary in the Standard. So now I have free reign and expect a joke a day forever and ever (at least, it will feel that long) 

Necessary Lies

Video

09 Jun 2011

Ian Leslie, writer and commentator

Carl Jung - Legacy and Influence

Video

02 Jun 2011

With Mark Vernon, Robert Rowland-Smith and Gary Lachman

The Embodiment of Life: Francisco Varela (1946-2001)

Blog

30 May 2011

Jonathan Rowson

On Wednesday I will be attending a conference to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the untimely death of Francisco Varela, organised by the Centre for Real World Learning, and hosted at City University in London. There are still places available for those who wish to attend.

Blogs, dogs and Big Society cogs

Blog

20 May 2011

Matthew Taylor

A few weeks ago my forthright friend Oliver turned to me outside The Harp (one of the very best pubs in central London) and said ‘anyway, what is it with the blogs? They have become incredibly dull!’. As someone who is interested in politics I think he particularly wondered why I had so little so say about the travails of the Coalition and Mr Miliband.

The anti-social animal

Blog

19 May 2011

Matthew Taylor

We had a great lunchtime event with David Brooks today. The brilliant New York Times columnist was talking about his new book, The Social Animal which is an elegant quasi-novelistic exploration of the largely subconscious forces that drive our behaviour and mould our character. I was able to catch a bit of time with David before the event, a conversation which began with me thanking him for giving the RSA a name check last night on Newsnight.