Alain Badiou: a life in writing
'So many people now don't know the joy of love. They know sexual pleasure, but we all know what Lacan said about sexual pleasure.' Interview by Stuart Jeffries
In defence of self-help books
Alain de Botton: The ancient philosophers recognised we all need help navigating our lives – so what explains self-help books' decline in prestige?
The Second Sexism is just victim-envy
Suzanne Moore: It is perfectly possible to understand that many men are suffering at the moment without blaming it on feminism
Joey Barton quotes philosophy. That doesn’t make him ‘reformed’
Ellie Mae O'Hagan: It's pure snobbery to assume that a working class footballer can't be violent and also read books
Machiavelli’s The Prince, part 8: a lingering love of justice
Nick Spencer: While he looks brute force in the face, Machiavelli's view of the balance between might and right is ultimately ambivalent
Debut author: Jules Evans
A quest to discover how ancient Greek philosophy can be applied to today's emotional problems makes for a punchy read, writes William Skidelsky
Et cetera: non-fiction roundup – reviews
The Great Accelerator by Paul Virilio, Sparrow by Kim Todd and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Introduction to Antiphilosophy by Boris Groys – review
Stuart Kelly admires an electrifying set of essays on continental thinkers
Machiavelli’s The Prince, part 7: the two sides of human nature
Nick Spencer: How to believe: The author's dark view of human nature was out of tune with his age, but his talk of the beast within is almost post-Darwin
Machiavelli’s The Prince, part 6: was Machiavelli an atheist?
Nick Spencer: The book's short chapter on 'church states' is a masterpiece of subtle, savage anti-ecclesiastical irony
The Ancient Guide to Modern Life by Natalie Haynes – review
Standup comic Natalie Haynes offers a bracing guide to the classics, writes Jessica Holland
Machiavelli’s The Prince, part five: reversing the virtues
Nick Spencer: How to believe: Machiavelli's subversion of the humanist paean to virtues is clearest in his questioning of generosity, compassion and honour
The Event of Literature by Terry Eagleton – review
Stuart Kelly wrestles with Terry Eagleton's theory of literature
Et cetera: non-fiction roundup – reviews
This Is Not a Diary by Zygmunt Bauman, Seven Puzzles of Thought by RM Sainsbury & Michael Tye and The Meat Fix by John Nicholson
Machiavelli’s The Prince, part two: humanism and the lessons of history
Nick Spencer: How to believe: The Prince follows humanist convention in commending virtuous rulers such as Marcus Aurelius – but subverts it by praising tyrants for their cruelty
What Debord can teach us about protest
Meghan Sutherland: The Big Ideas: The Society of the Spectacle urges us to rethink the relationship between activism, philosophy and pleasure in everyday life
Dignity: Its History and Meaning by Michael Rosen – review
John Gallagher enjoys a short, rich work about the much contested idea of dignity
Et cetera: non-fiction reviews roundup
Herbert Marcuse by Malcolm Miles, The I Ching by Richard J Smith and The Body Language of Love by Allan & Barbara Pease
Thomas Aquinas, part 6: natural law
Tina Beattie: How to believe: Modern thinkers who appeal to natural law as a foundation for morality often lose sight of Aquinas's more flexible naturalism
Et cetera: non-fiction roundup – reviews
The End of Money by David Wolman, Žižek: A Guide for the Perplexed by Séan Sheehan and The British by Pont
Thomas Aquinas, part 5: what does it mean to be human?
Tina Beattie: How to believe: For Aquinas, the link between consciousness and matter is our desire for God as an expression of the life of the Trinity
Boredom: A Lively History by Peter Toohey – review
Helen Zaltzman is diverted by Peter Toohey's study of tedium and ennui
Thomas Aquinas, part 4: how did the world begin?
Tina Beattie: How to believe: Aquinas's understanding of our origins combines Aristotelian and Platonic cosmologies with the biblical account of creation
Investigating Sex: Surrealist Discussions, edited by José Pierre – review
The leading surrealists' discussions of the mechanics of love will infuriate and intrigue in equal measure, writes Zoe Strimpel
Thomas Aquinas, part 3: scripture, reason and the being of God
Tina Beattie: How to believe: For Aquinas, the being of God is better understood as a verb than a noun – a dynamism that sustains all creation
Bubbles by Peter Sloterdijk, translated by Wieland Hoban – review
Brian Dillon on a meeting of art, science and metaphysics
What Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’ means to Americans
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen: The Big Ideas: Nietzschean high-school killers have obscured the interpretation of 'God is dead' as an opening, not a closing, of minds
The political message of Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’
Lesley Chamberlain: The Big Ideas: Nietzsche's declaration was not an atheist broadside in today's context, but an attack on the link between reason and divinity
The Faith of the Faithless by Simon Critchley – review
Stuart Kelly examines Simon Critchley's 'variations'
A Shed of One’s Own by Marcus Berkmann – review
Marcus Berkmann gets to the heart of the male midlife crisis with insight, humour and some worrying maths, writes William Leith
Et cetera: Steven Poole’s non-fiction choice – reviews
Steven Poole on The Existentialist's Guide to Death, the Universe and Nothingness, The Ajax Dilemma and Chicken
This could be Carl Jung’s century
Andrew Samuels: The psychoanalyst saw himself as a sort of therapist for western culture, and his diagnosis of its ills resonates today
Digested read: Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton
What was Christ's crucifixion but an existential dilemma? Viewed through this perspective, the secular can once more reclaim the Sistine Chapel as a symbol of male midlife crisis
Alain de Botton: a life in writing
'The nirvana would be if the questions raised by Oprah Winfrey would be answered by the faculty at Harvard.' Interview by Stuart Jeffries
A Short History of Western Thought by Stephen Trombley – review
Julian Baggini is impressed with this packed survey of 2,500 years of western philosophy