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THE CHRONICLE
Step into the library…
For this blog, we’ve captured the feeling of stepping into a beautiful, tranquil library, looking out onto the rolling English countryside as you browse through our posts.
We’ve created a labyrinthine collection for everyone, whether you are an interested adult learner, dreaming of donning a velvet smoking jacket and immersing yourself in a fireside expedition through canonical scholarship or a budding researcher, eager to equip yourself for exciting fieldwork. For university and A level students, your studies should not be just a matter of cramming knowledge into your head: here, you can relax, immerse yourself in your specialism and enjoy it!
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The Christmas Story: The Annunciation and Nativity
The Christmas story is one of the most important and influential narratives in world history. It has inspired philosophers, artists, dramatists and theologians throughout the ages and has enormous significance for Christians today. Dr. Orton investigates… A Level students will find this useful background for some of the topics you will need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers , we’ve included clickable links to useful literature and can
Dec 5, 2025
The Book of Job: Suffering and the Mystery of the Universe
Get to grips with Religious Studies and Philosophy in five minutes in this blog series! If you’re an A Level Religious Studies or Philosophy student, each of these blog posts is a five-minute summary of some of the main topics you will need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature, primary sources and canonical scholarship you’ll need to know. In this post, discover the Book of Job and how
Oct 20, 2025
The Problem of Evil | A Five Minute Summary
Get to grips with Religious Studies and Philosophy in five minutes in this blog series! If you’re an A Level Religious Studies or Philosophy student, each of these blog posts is a five-minute summary of some of the main topics you will need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature, primary sources and canonical scholarship you’ll need to know. In this post, discover the Problem of Evil and
Oct 13, 2025
The Euthyphro Dilemma: Is Something Good Because God Wills It, or Does God Will It Because It Is Good?
Get to grips with Religious Studies and Philosophy in five minutes in this blog series! If you’re an A Level Religious Studies or Philosophy student, each of these blog posts is a five-minute summary of some of the main topics you will need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature, primary sources and canonical scholarship you’ll need to know. In this post, discover Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemm
Jul 21, 2025
Must Art be Beautiful?
Dr. Orton introduces one of the biggest questions in the philosophy and history of art. Take a look at some of the world’s most influential art works and some of the most controversial, alongside some lesser-known works. Then decide for yourself: must art be beautiful? Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus For many people, art is synonymous with beauty. Paintings like Sandro Botticelli’s fifteenth century The Birth of Venus is one of the world’s most famous paintings and i
Jul 14, 2025
The Ontological Argument: God Exists by Definition
Get to grips with Religious Studies and Philosophy in five minutes in this blog series! If you’re an A Level Religious Studies or...
Mar 24, 2025
The Cosmological Argument: Is God the Cause of the Universe?
Get to grips with Religious Studies and Philosophy in five minutes in this blog series! If you’re an A Level Religious Studies or...
Mar 17, 2025
The Teleological Argument: Proving God by Design
Get to grips with Religious Studies and Philosophy in five minutes in this blog series! If you’re an A Level Religious Studies or...
Mar 10, 2025
Plato and the Dialogue Form
Plato is one of the most important philosophers in the history of the world. It’s almost impossible to study Western philosophy, history...
Jan 16, 2025
Is Life a Game? How Wittgenstein’s Language Games Challenged Everything
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theory of language games has been enormously influential in Philosophy and Religious Studies, but its implications...
Dec 9, 2024
Rights and Personhood in the Western Canon
I n her last post, Dr. Orton looked at the distinction between personhood and the self , and challenged the way these ideas are used in...
Dec 2, 2024
Is the West Peculiar? Personhood and the Self in Philosophy and Anthropology
Ideas about personhood and the self are important, but are often conflated in discussion in both Philosophy and Anthropology. Dr. Orton...
Nov 26, 2024
Cogito, Ergo Sum: René Descartes’ Grand Idea
René Descartes’ cogito, ergo sum is one of the most famous pronouncements in the history of philosophy. It has also been blamed for...
Nov 15, 2024
Gods vs Philosophers
G et to grips with Greek Religion in five minutes in this blog series! For A Level Classics or Ancient History students , each of these...
Jun 28, 2024
Defining Religion
From rituals that protect against tiger attacks in the Sundarbans mangrove forest to pujas to pray for snow in the Himalayas, Dr. Orton’s research is heavily involved with religious themes. Here, she surveys the historical debate about how to define religion and explains how her own fieldwork has shaped her views… For many young researchers or independent scholars getting started on Anthropology or Religious Studies projects, the academic debate about how to define ‘religio
May 24, 2024
Thucydides and the Morality of Power
In a single episode of the Peloponnesian War, Athens slaughtered all Melian men of military age and sold Melian women and children into slavery as part of the government’s political realist foreign policy. Dr. Orton investigates the ancient massacre that defined international relations’ oldest theory. Political realism – the view that governments’ priority in international relations is power and security for their own state – is an ancient political theory. It was famously
Sep 20, 2022
The Ship, the Shore and the Philosopher
Dr. Orton investigates the geometrical heist that stole our fate back from the gods. In the time of Homer, the Greeks were at the mercy of the gods. Promethius was punished horribly by Zeus for stealing fire from the gods to give to humanity in the form of technology, science and civilisation. He was bound in chains while an eagle pecked out his liver, only to experience the same torment again, as the liver regrew every day. The gods were not champions of human empowerment.
May 2, 2022
The Radical Roots of Ancient Conservatism
Sophist, rhetorician and fifth-century Greek philosopher Protagoras of Abdera was not afraid to write books deemed dangerous enough for...
Nov 25, 2021
Plato and the Terrifying Beauty of Mathematics
- How A Mathematical Discovery Tormented the Ancient World - Orton Academy’s Head of Research Dr. Jane Orton reflects on the mathematical discovery that cost one man his life, inspired Plato and shocked the Greek world. The Peloponnesian War is over. Athens has been defeated and extreme Spartan-backed oligarchs will soon massacre nearby town Eleusis. It is a mild Mediterranean winter, shortly before the mystery rites and you, a slave-boy, are pulled away from your work in the
Aug 27, 2021
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