books

Plagiarism and Moral Relativism

In books, current affairs on 20 February 2010 with View Comments

It has recently been discovered that a critically acclaimed young German author, 17, has plagiarised parts of her novel “Axolotl Roadkill”. In one case, she lifted an entire page from an obscure book with few, if any, changes.
The German feuilleton and ‘literary establishment’ have been discussing this for the last few weeks, accomplishing nothing. Whole [...]

The audacity of it all

In books, philosophy on 28 June 2009 with View Comments

There are times when you wonder. How can you ever truly understand? How is one to grasp the truth behind all the appearances? As Nassim Taleb puts it, “the world is opaque and appearances fool us”.
People lie all the time. Even scientists do it. The Economist recently concluded an article about the (dis-) honesty of [...]