Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

3.8K followers 2K following 390 posts

friendly neighbourhood Schopenhauerian
• part time Proustian • associate professor @philoswarwick.bsky.social • author @uchicagopress.bsky.social

Posts Replies Media Videos

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

My wife has spent the last 2-3 months in hospital. She loves giving gifts and so of course she has set herself the task of creating bags of Halloween treats for the nurses and health care assistants working today. (I was in charge of distribution.)

October 31, 2025 at 7:06 PM

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

It’s here! My first physical copy of my book, out next month. @uchicagopress.bsky.social have a lovely traditional of sending the first copy straight from their offices in branded wrapping paper.

October 26, 2025 at 9:48 AM

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

Strong agreement with Pascal in this week’s Vote on a Quote

October 22, 2025 at 8:53 AM

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

From the philosophy common room

October 11, 2025 at 8:21 AM

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

Speaking as a David, I’m offended

September 27, 2025 at 3:30 PM

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

Interesting connection between Camus and Proust - not that one! It’s wild that French literature only took one generation to go from Proust (that one) to Camus. I love them both but they could hardly be more different. (Quote from Robert Zaretsky’s ‘Victories Never Last’)

The association between the black rat and bubonic plague is as old as the plague itself. When he was still in Oran, Camus received what he jokingly called his "pestiferous books" — a package of scientific works that a friend, Lucette Maeurer, had sent him from Algiers." Among these works was one by Proust - not that Proust, but instead Marcel's father Adrien Proust, a well-known epidemiologist who in 1897 published La défense de l'Europe contre la peste. In his wide-ranging survey of plague epidemics, Proust noted an "interesting fact": pestilences were often announced by invasions of dying rats. In Canton, for ex-ample, neighborhoods counted as many as 20,000 dead rats, the advance sign of what was in store for the unhappy residents.

September 25, 2025 at 5:07 PM

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

New!

September 20, 2025 at 11:35 AM

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

NEW! Bought from the window of my local Waterstones. Always exciting when a book by a philosopher is a capital e Event. @leaypi.bsky.social

September 7, 2025 at 12:13 PM

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

Happy birthday to Hegel with love from Schopenhauer 🎂🎉🎁

Hegel's adherents are quite right when they claim that the influence of their master on his contemporaries has been incalculable. An entire generation of scholars intellectually completely paralysed, made incapable of any thought, indeed driven so far as not knowing any longer what thinking is, but taking for philosophical thought the most wilful and at the same time most absurd play of words and concepts or the thoughtless preaching about conventional subjects of philosophy, with claims taken out of thin air, or completely meaningless sentences, or ones consisting in contradictions - that has been the lauded influence of Hegel.
If despair overcomes you, always remember that we are in Germany where we have been able to do what would have been possible nowhere else: namely to proclaim as a great mind and profound thinker a mindless, ignorant, nonsense spreading philosophaster who, through unprecedented, hollow verbiage, thoroughly and permanently disorganizes their brains. I mean our dear Hegel.

August 27, 2025 at 4:03 PM

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

So Nick Cave donated the issue of Mind with Alan Turing’s paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” to @oxfamgb.bsky.social - and it sold for £7000! (Image from Oxfam on Instagram)

August 16, 2025 at 9:14 AM

David Bather Woods

@davidbatherwoods.bsky.social

Lovely endorsements for my forthcoming book!

“brilliant and vivid biography” @emilyherring.bsky.social

“a joy to read” @nigelwarburton.bsky.social

Out in November. Preorder now: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...