A building with yellow wall, hands in silhouette in foreground, and animals resting in the sun.

An African philosophy

Lansana Keita rejected Eurocentric ideas, tracing the philosophical tradition back to African Kemet or ancient Egypt

essayHistory of ideas

An African philosophy

Sanya Osha

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Painting of a historical figure in a red and gold outfit with a patterned hat set against a muted background.

essayPolitics and government

The presence of power

The Indian thinker Rammohun Roy believed that good governance must be close: distance made the British Empire cruel

Shomik Dasgupta

Black and white photo of a man in a prison uniform surrounded by security personnel in a courtroom setting.

essayPersonality

There are no psychopaths

Virtually everything you think you know about psychopathy has been thoroughly debunked. Why does this zombie idea live on?

Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen

Sepia-toned photo of silhouetted figures dancing with sticks in a smoky environment, creating a dramatic atmosphere.

essayAnthropology

Does culture make emotion?

Franz Boas helps us solve the puzzle of where our emotional lives originate: in our selves or in the cultures around us

Noga Arikha

A couple hugging by a lake under a cloudy sky with a person standing by a lamppost nearby.

essayMeaning and the good life

The six-second hug

From art to religion to sex, instrumentalisation has drained away intrinsic value. But life is about more than material benefits

Julian Baggini

Black and white photo of a policeman observing a women’s protest with signs like “All Women Are Beautiful”

essayLanguage and linguistics

Bitch: a history

The word can morph from noun to verb to adjective, from dog to human, from female to male. What will it do next?

Karen Stollznow

Ink painting of people in traditional attire engaging in activities on a wooden floor with various objects around them.

videoEconomic history

The extraordinary efficiency of Japan’s Edo economy

6 minutes

Black and white photo of a silhouette standing in calm water with distant hills and cloudy sky in the background.

essayComputing and artificial intelligence

Geist in the machine

As the 18th-century war between mechanism and romanticism returns, we face a new question: can we build artificial souls?

Peter Wolfendale

Photo of an elderly man jogging on a street lined with trees houses visible in the background on a clear day.

videoWellbeing

Movement is a life philosophy for an 87-year-old runner

6 minutes

A landscape with lakes, tundra and distant snow-capped mountains under a cloudy sky.

videoThe environment

Could one road forever change this remote Alaskan refuge?

14 minutes

A man standing near a petrol pump on a traffic island between two diverging roads under a clear blue sky.

essayValues and beliefs

Abandoning ourselves

Since living requires choosing, we will always feel regret about the paths not taken. But what matters is the future we forge

Tasha Kleeman

Abstract art with neon-coloured ovals on a black background, featuring red, green and pink lights in a digital photo.

videoThinkers and theories

Henri Bergson on why our world is built of objects and space

4 minutes

Old black and white photo of a smiling person on a boat with the sea in the background.

essayHistory of science

Unbounded

In the early 20th century, Emmy Noether’s mathematics transcended the physical world. She longed to do the same herself

Julia Ravanis

A woman in a flowing white dress skateboarding past people walking on a sunny day next to a corrugated fence.

essayHistory of ideas

A duty to oneself

African philosophical values of harmony and vitality have much to offer our thinking about what we owe to ourselves

Thaddeus Metz

Photo of a person painting waveforms on clear film with a brush and ink beside audio equipment.

videoMusic

A dispatch from the dawn of the electronic music age

14 minutes

A passenger pigeon egg against a gradient background with a handwritten label in French detailing its origin.

essayBiology

Reversing extinction

Technologies of preserving and reviving organisms are already redefining the meaning of life, death, and extinction itself

Sadiah Qureshi

Photo of a man in a workshop illuminated by warm light, surrounded by tools with a focused expression.

videoWellbeing

One man’s poignant search for community via radio waves

13 minutes

essayAnthropology

Does culture make emotion?

Franz Boas helps us solve the puzzle of where our emotional lives originate: in our selves or in the cultures around us

Noga Arikha

Painting of a bridge’s skeletal structure on a billboard with a colourful sky and greenery in the background.

videoHome

An artist’s wistful survey of his demolished childhood home

8 minutes

Black and white photo of a chalkboard filled with complex mathematical equations and diagrams.

essayMathematics

The eye of the mathematician

Is mathematical beauty real? Or is it just a subjective, human ‘wow’ that is becoming redundant in an AI age?

Rita Ahmadi

Surgeons in blue attire performing an operation in a theatre, with medical tools visible.

essayBioethics

Savage care

Neat ethical principles have nothing to say to doctors like me, faced with the brutal, bloody compromises of hospital life

Ronald W Dworkin

Painting of a landscape with a helicopter, purple mountains, people near a stream and vehicles by trees under a blue sky.

videoNature and landscape

The joys that follow rain – an animated Aboriginal artwork

2 minutes

An older woman sitting on steps, speaking to journalists holding microphones and cameras outside a house.

essayBiography and memoir

On her own terms

Doris Lessing’s Golden Notebook remains shocking, necessary and imperfect – a dazzling experiment in living as a woman

Catherine Taylor

Silhouette of person reaching towards vibrant colourful light patterns on a wall.

videoTeaching and learning

Museum-goers toy with reality in this Oscar-nominated short

16 minutes

A destroyed house with an American flag amid debris and destruction under a clear blue sky.

essayEconomics

The insurance catastrophe

Whole regions of the world are now uninsurable, bringing radical uncertainty to the economy. How do we fix the problem?

Gavin Evans

Painting of a distressed man with wide eyes holding a dying man with a bloody head. They lie on a red pattered carpet near a toppled throne, dark, rich tones in the background.

videoGlobal history

Why this once-banned Russian painting remains controversial

25 minutes

A person in a red jacket walking by a seated woman in traditional attire on a stone path with mountains in the background.

essayNations and empires

Who is Walter Mignolo?

A prominent architect of decolonial theory, his diagnosis of European colonial ills is both penetrating and flawed

Federico Perelmuter

essayPersonality

There are no psychopaths

Virtually everything you think you know about psychopathy has been thoroughly debunked. Why does this zombie idea live on?

Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen

Two people relaxing on sun loungers under a blue umbrella on a grass lawn with garden gnomes nearby.

videoAgeing and death

When half of a couple that plans to live forever dies

12 minutes