Some of us who have or have had piano (or any other classical instrument) lessons will remember the days when our teacher (usually old and bad-breathed), used to scrounge around in an old wooden drawer for a particular manuscript or piece of classical music. When they eventually found the piece they were (or weren’t) looking […]

I’m a big Ayn Rand fan and used to be an Objectivist, that is, someone who believes that knowledge is gained through reason, that it is universally objective (as opposed to subjective), and that (amongst other things) man’s (and women’s) rational self-interest is in pursuing laissez-faire (hands-off) capitalism. Then I came to realise that ‘reason’ […]