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Black and white night photo of historic Gothic-style buildings with arched windows, towers and courtyards.

Ghosts among the philosophers

Cambridge, home of analytic philosophy, was also a hotbed of psychical research. How did this spooky subject take root?

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Black and white night photo of historic Gothic-style buildings with arched windows, towers and courtyards.

essay

History of ideas

Ghosts among the philosophers

Cambridge, home of analytic philosophy, was also a hotbed of psychical research. How did this spooky subject take root?

Matyáš Moravec

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Human rights and justice

Did you think you were safe?

When I moved to India for work, I found that rape was a feature of the country, as deeply embedded as caste

Evelyn Fok

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Medicine

When I lost my intuition

For years, I practised medicine with cool certainty, comfortable with life-and-death decisions. Then, one day, I couldn’t

Ronald W Dworkin

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Thinkers and theories

The necessity of Nussbaum

Martha Nussbaum’s philosophy is dynamic and challenging, but also elegant and lucidly written: she is the thinker of our time

Brandon Robshaw

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Personality

The highly sensitive person

Those with this little-known trait think more deeply and feel more empathy. But they also deal with significant challenges

Elaine Aron

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War and peace

Could conquest return?

It’s only a century since US diplomats first persuaded the world that it’s wrong for countries to annex their neighbours

Kerry Goettlich

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Stories and literature

Two variants of a Hindu myth come alive in an animated ode to Indian storytelling

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Neuroscience

Why nothing matters

It took centuries for people to embrace the zero. Now it’s helping neuroscientists understand how the brain perceives absences

Benjy Barnett

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Technology and the self

The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy

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Fairness and equality

There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa

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Black and white photo of people gathered by the Berlin Wall, a couple embracing in the foreground.

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Thinkers and theories

The necessity of Nussbaum

Martha Nussbaum’s philosophy is dynamic and challenging, but also elegant and lucidly written: she is the thinker of our time

Brandon Robshaw

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Food and drink

The passage of time is a peculiar thing in a 24-hour diner

14 minutes

Photo of a crowd with a focused young woman looking to the side, surrounded by blurred faces in the foreground.

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Personality

The highly sensitive person

Those with this little-known trait think more deeply and feel more empathy. But they also deal with significant challenges

Elaine Aron

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Art

Background music was the radical invention of a trailblazing composer

17 minutes

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Anthropology

For an Amazonian female shaman, ayahuasca ceremonies are a rite and a business

30 minutes

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Medicine

When I lost my intuition

For years, I practised medicine with cool certainty, comfortable with life-and-death decisions. Then, one day, I couldn’t

Ronald W Dworkin

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Thinkers and theories

The winter of civilisation

Byung-Chul Han’s relentless critiques of digital capitalism reveal how this suffocating system creates hollowed-out lives

Josh Cohen

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Biology

‘Save the parasites’ may not be a popular rallying cry – but it could be a vital one

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Childhood and adolescence

Hegemony and childcare

Early childhood development interventions in the Global South is a huge industry built on highly questionable assumptions

Francesca Mezzenzana & Gabriel Scheidecker

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Metaphysics

What do past, present and future mean to a philosopher of time?

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Psychiatry and psychotherapy

The art in the analyst’s room

The consulting office reflects the personality of the therapist, while also subtly shaping the experience of their patients

Anna Parker

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Gender

A filmmaker responds to Lars von Trier’s call for a new muse with a unique application

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Political philosophy

A right to exist?

Since states are founded on violence and expulsion, their existence is always bound up in thorny questions about justice

Andrew F March

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Computing and artificial intelligence

Chatbots of the dead

We can now create compelling experiences of talking with our dead. Is this ghoulish, therapeutic or something else again?

Amy Kurzweil & Daniel Story

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Computing and artificial intelligence

Why large language models are mysterious – even to their creators

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Human evolution

The commitment to collaborate

Though natural selection favours self-interest, humans are extraordinarily good at cooperating with one another. Why?

Saira Khan

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Sports and games

Havana’s streets become racetracks in this exhilarating portrait of children at play

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A woman walking on a dimly lit street pavement at night with a parked scooter and two men walking in the background, one appearing to follow her; the woman looks downcast, the man appears to be smiling.

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Human rights and justice

Did you think you were safe?

When I moved to India for work, I found that rape was a feature of the country, as deeply embedded as caste

Evelyn Fok

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Spirituality

Through rituals of prayer, a monk cultivates a quietly radical concept of freedom

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