Art v. aestheticism : the case of Walter Pater -- The importance of T.E. Hulme -- A craving for reality : T.S. Eliot today -- Wallace Stevens : metaphysical claims adjuster -- The permanent Auden -- The first half of Muriel Spark -- The qualities of Robert Musil -- James Fitzjames Stephen v. John Stuart Mill -- The legacy of Friedrich Nietzsche -- The world according to Sartre -- The perversions of Michel Foucault -- The anguishes of E.M. Cioran -- The trivialization of outrage -- "The two cultures" today -- Frances Fukuyama and the end of hisory -- Josef Pieper : leisure and its discontents.