Talking to ... Mark Lilla

If there's a great mystery in the history of ideas, it lies in
where the blind spots of thought are encountered. However, this
raises the question of precisely what conditions lead to such
blind thinking. When Mark Lilla, a professor of humanities at
Columbia University whose work has delved deeply into the history
of political theology, prefaces his book Ignorance and Bliss with
the motto of an English Writer: »The faintest of all human
passions is the love of truth,« he's highlighting the underlying
dilemma: that the love of truth pales in comparison to other
passions. And because he’s somewhat surprised this fact has
received comparatively little attention in the history of
philosophy—with the exception of Nietzsche—in his latest book,
Lilla turns to the psychology of the present-day obliviousness,
characterizing various paradigms within which the will to
ignorance has found expression. Looking around at our present,
we're confronted with countless varieties of blissful ignorance,
making our conversation with him all the more rewarding as an
in-depth exploration of a terrain that's received little
attention.


After working as an editor at The Public Interest and holding
professorships at New York University and the University of
Chicago, Mark Lilla became a professor of humanities at Columbia
University in 2007. He regularly writes for the New York Times
and New York Review of Books, among many other publications.


Recent Publications


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