How the philosophy of Giambattista Vico was influenced by eighteenth-century Neopolitan painting Can painting transform philosophy? In Inventing Falsehood, Making Truth, Malcolm Bull looks at Neapolitan art around 1700 through the eyes of the philosopher Giambattista Vico. Surrounded by extravagant examples of late Baroque painting by artists like Luca Giordano and Francesco Solimena, Vico concluded that human truth was a product of the imagination. Truth was not something that could be observed: instead, it was something made in the way that paintings were made--through the exercise of fantasy. Juxtaposing paintings and texts, Bull presents the masterpieces of late Baroque painting in early eighteenth-century Naples from an entirely new perspective. Revealing the close connections between the arguments of the philosophers and the arguments of the painters, he shows how Vico drew on both in his influential philosophy of history, The New Science. Bull suggests that painting can serve not just as an illustration for philosophical arguments, but also as the model for them--that painting itself has sometimes been a form of epistemological experiment, and that, perhaps surprisingly, the Neapolitan Baroque may have been one of the routes through which modern consciousness was formed.

How the philosophy of Giambattista Vico was influenced by eighteenth-century Neopolitan painting Can painting transform philosophy? In Inventing Falsehood, Making Truth, Malcolm Bull looks at Neapolitan art around 1700 through the eyes of the philosopher Giambattista Vico. Surrounded by extravagant examples of late Baroque painting by artists like Luca Giordano and Francesco Solimena, Vico concluded that human truth was a product of the imagination. Truth was not something that could be observed: instead, it was something made in the way that paintings were made--through the exercise of fantasy. Juxtaposing paintings and texts, Bull presents the masterpieces of late Baroque painting in early eighteenth-century Naples from an entirely new perspective. Revealing the close connections between the arguments of the philosophers and the arguments of the painters, he shows how Vico drew on both in his influential philosophy of history, The New Science. Bull suggests that painting can serve not just as an illustration for philosophical arguments, but also as the model for them--that painting itself has sometimes been a form of epistemological experiment, and that, perhaps surprisingly, the Neapolitan Baroque may have been one of the routes through which modern consciousness was formed.

The multiplicity of the self and the inaccessibility of truth are commonplaces of contemporary thought. But in Seeing Things Hidden they become key features of a philosophy of history that reunites emancipatory political theory with the apocalyptic tradition. Apocalyptic is the revelation of things hidden. But what does it mean to be hidden? And why are things hidden in the first place? By gently teasing out the meanings of hiddenness, this book develops a new theory of apocalyptic and explores its relation to the writings of Kant, Hegel, Benjamin and Derrida. Exploiting affinities between the work of Lukács and recent American philosophers like Rorty and Cavell, Bull argues that the central dynamic of late modernity is the coming into hiding of the contradictory identities generated through political and social emancipation. Drawing on analytic and Continental philosophy he articulates the most ambitious philosophy of history since Francis Fukuyama's The End of History, presenting fresh interpretations of such icons of modernity as Hegel's master-slave dialectic, Benjamin's angel of history, Du Bois's concept of double consciousness, and Rawls's veil of ignorance.

Ian Schrager, Marcus Aurelius, Supreme, Kith, Rick Rubin, Kanye West, Soulcycle, Ikea, Sweetgreen, The Wu-Tang Clan, Danny Meyer, Tracy Chapman, Warren Buffett, Walt Disney, Jack's Wife Freda, Starbucks, A24, Picasso, In-N-Out Burger, intel, Tom Brady, Mission Chinese, Nike, Masayoshi Takayama, Oprah, the Baal Shem Tov. What do they all have in common? They have discovered their purpose and unlocked their creative potential. We have been born into a time when all the tools to make our dreams a reality are available and, for the most part, affordable. We have the freedom to manifest our truth, pursue our own path, and along the way discover our best selves. Whether as individuals or as part of a group, we can't be held back by anything except knowledge. The Age of Ideas provides that knowledge. It takes the reader on an incredible journey into a world of self-discovery, personal fulfillment, and modern entrepreneurship. The book starts by explaining how the world has shifted into this new paradigm and then outlines a step-by-step framework to turn your inner purpose and ideas into an empowered existence. Your ideas have more power than ever before, and when you understand how to manifest and share those ideas, you will be on the road to making an impact in ways you never before imagined. Welcome to the Age of Ideas.

From here to utopia, new directions in political theory What does political agency mean for those who don't know what to do or can't be bothered to do it? This book develops a novel account of collective emancipation in which freedom is achieved not through knowledge and action but via doubt and inertia. In essays that range from ancient Greece to the end of the Anthropocene, Bull addresses questions central to contemporary political theory in novel readings of texts by Aristotle, Machiavelli, Marx, and Arendt, and shows how classic philosophical problems have a bearing on issues like political protest and climate change. The result is an entirely original account of political agency for the twenty-first century in which uncertainty and idleness are limned with utopian promise.

Is mercy more important than justice? Since antiquity, mercy has been regarded as a virtue. Yet by the end of the eighteenth century, mercy had been exiled from political life. In this book, Malcolm Bull analyses and challenges the Enlightenment’s rejection of mercy. Political realism, Bull argues, demands recognition of the foundational role of mercy in society. If we are vulnerable to harm from others, we are in need of their mercy. By restoring the primacy of mercy over justice, we may constrain the powerful and release the agency of the powerless. An important contribution to political philosophy from an inventive thinker, On Mercy makes a persuasive case for returning this neglected virtue to the heart of political thought.

Argues that there is no authentic self, that reality is people continually remaking themselves to look like the people they want to be, and that there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

Reveals the facts behind the deceiving myths that have been professed about Columbus and his time.

Nietzsche, the philosopher seemingly opposed to everyone, has met with remarkably little opposition himself. He remains what he wanted to be— the limit-philosopher of a modernity that never ends. In this provocative, sometimes disturbing book, Bull argues that merely to reject Nietzsche is not to escape his lure. He seduces by appealing to our desire for victory, our creativity, our humanity. Only by ‘reading like a loser’ and failing to live up to his ideals can we move beyond Nietzsche to a still more radical revaluation of all values—a subhumanism that expands the boundaries of society until we are left with less than nothing in common. Anti-Nietzsche is a subtle and subversive engagement with Nietzsche and his twentieth-century interpreters—Heidegger, Vattimo, Nancy, and Agamben. Written with economy and clarity, it shows how a politics of failure might change what it means to be human.