Crossing the divide: A website about Literature, Art & Philosophy by Venkat Ramanan

Ghosts serve perhaps a useful role in human lives: they could help define the nature of our selves and what it is to be human. I discuss this in this essay which was published on 29 August 2023 by Blue Labyrinths magazine. See  https://bluelabyrinths.com/2023/08/28/can-ghosts-shape-our-selves/   Hamlet and his father (William Blake, 1806) (Public Domain)

The courage that Steinbeck writes about is one of physical and moral bravery whereas the strength of character Levi portrays should properly be termed “spiritual” or “existential” valour. The Third of May 1808 , Francisco de Goya 1814 (Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons) e seem of late to be more and more concerned with the question of what makes us human. Perhaps this has to do with the rise of secularism or our angst about machines. But it would seem humans have mulled over this question for a lot longer than we realise (even if not with the same intensity). Aristotle for instance thought that reason was what was so unique about us. We were not only the only species to have the ability to exercise our intellect but are conscious that it is also morally good to do so. In more recent times, the historian   Yuval Noah Harari has steered clear  of reason and morality while holding that what is special about humans is the fact that they are the only animals who can work coll

This was originally posted on LinkedIn Pulse  on September 29, 2015.  While our technology companies have begun addressing the gap they appear to be flipping Snow’s question around In a July 2015 article,   Forbes magazine reported how a number of tech companies like Facebook and Uber have recently begun recruiting more non-technical graduates than tech ones. It appears that they think that “liberal arts thinking makes them stronger.” For instance, as Stewart Butterfield (CEO of Slack Technologies) noted, studying philosophy taught him how to write really clearly and also - even more significantly - to follow arguments all the way down “which is invaluable in running meetings.” Forbes cites observations also from how graduates from some universities in the last decade were tracked on LinkedIn. Only 30% of graduates from Northwestern University, for example, secured jobs in engineering or information technology. Most of the rest ended up with career paths in such fields as sa