Anna Gát: Hume's Midlife Crisis, Resilience, Breaking Points, Right to Sex, Royal Bodies
Our curator this week is Anna Gát (@TheAnnaGat). Anna is the founder and CEO of Interintellect, a platform reviving French salon culture for the digital age. Since 2019, Interintellect has hosted hundreds of depolarized conversations—from salons with Steven Pinker and Tyler Cowen to intimate discussions among curious strangers. Anna trained as a philosopher of art and dramaturg, published her first book of poetry at 19, and was nominated for European film awards as a screenwriter. She writes the weekly digest What to Read This Weekend.
Please enjoy these words that have mattered to Anna.
Anna's Picks
How David Hume Helped Me Solve My Midlife Crisis
The story of independent research, intellectual courage, and relentless investigation beyond conventional wisdom. Leading developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik has a breakdown and a hunch, and ends up resolving an enduring mystery in the history of the Enlightenment. A must-read!
How People Learn to Become Resilient
One of my favourite pieces on resilience that made me weep the first four times I read it. Maria Konnikova explores the legacy of child psychology legend Norman Garmezy.
Breaking Points
A brutal and beautiful piece by the philosopher Agnes Callard about the lesser discussed problem of friend breakups and through it the entire ethics of separation.
Kim Kardashian vs Taylor Swift: a battle of two PR styles
A piece purportedly about the Taylor vs Kanye debacle, but in reality about so much more: what are the different types of fame available to the ambitious in the 21st century?
How to Be Good
Larissa MacFarquhar's famous portrait of the philosopher Derek Parfit is not only a fascinating introduction to Parfit's arcane work, but also an exploration of the Western mind and personal identity.
Boundary Issues
Young Lily Scherlis deep-dives into the mess of what people mean by "boundaries" and comes back up offering good solutions for how to think better about it.
The Right to Sex
Oxford philosopher Amia Srinivasan's excellent essay about incels, chosen or unchosen sexlessness, and what right people have to each other's bodies.
Royal Bodies
When the British novelist Hilary Mantel passed away in 2022, she left empty a literary space that a whole generation of writers will now fight to fill. This article showcases her inimitable language, style, power of observation, and humour.