Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, a book he wrote in 1888 and took only 3 weeks to complete, is a unique autobiographical work that is both a reaffirmation and self-celebration of his core ideas: the Eternal Return, the Death of God, the Overman, and Amor Fati. There are extracts in this book where we find Nietzsche's self-importance and megalomania on full display...

First impressions are impactful. Research in psychology suggests such impressions can last for months¹ and affect personal judgements despite knowledge of existing evidence to the contrary of the formed belief². Looking at the neural correlates of these impressions, a part of this 'first judgement' phenomena can be attributed to activity in the amygdala. The amygdala is an area of the brain often popularised as ‘the centre for fear’. Whilst this is vaguely true, its function is more nuanced...

Karl Popper’s theory of falsification in the philosophy of science aims at demarcating science from pseudoscience. It does this through error. That is, a scientific theory is not scientific because it can always prove itself right, but because it possesses the property of potentially being wrong. Recognising that a theory is scientific only if it satisfies the criteria that it can be proved wrong, that is, falsified, is an intellectual process whose application can be extended beyond scientific practice...

Consider our coming into being. We did not choose to whom we were born to, when we were born, in what place we were born. To even be born at all was not a choice we made. If we are to be determined, must we also create and maintain the illusion of freewill so as to avoid the pit of nihilistic belief a life without free choice holds? Steinbeck said there was one book to every man, that book for him being East of Eden. I would extend Eden’s influence to, if not answering, then elucidating further the necessity to believe that despite our inherent nature, we can choose to be something different…

Often we are met with a dilemma when regarding great art, philosophy, science or literature: the authors of these works did things we believe to be morally reprehensible. It is an arduous task to address the matter through moral debate. Searching into the genealogy of our moral repugnance, looking back on the history of morality and debating between moral relativism or moral universalism will not necessarily answer how we can reconcile an artist's actions with their work. There is a different (perhaps arguably oversimplified but nevertheless useful) approach we can take to accommodate the ideas of an individual whose actions or thoughts we fundamentally disagree with...

“That which exists without my knowledge, exists without my consent”, so said the Judge in McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. Evil is that dark but interesting subject. The culmination of films, paintings and books, indeed of any art that explores the subject of evil, is evidence enough of this interest. Part of the greatness of great works is the authors ability to conjure up characters whose twisted nature makes us simultaenously fearful and fascinated by them. What inherently is it in literature that makes a certain evil grab our attention so convincingly? The Judge is strongly based on Milton’s devil in Paradise Lost. The Judge, as Lucifer did, made gunpowder from volcanic ash and urine. The judge does not age, "he says he will never die". This is an evil that knows no bounds, whose intellect has no limits, whose strenght has no restraint. It is not the stupid, evil man that makes us read on, but the powerful, competent one. If God's omniscience demands our obeisance, it is an omniscient evil that fuels our curiosity…