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Essays

Longform Essays written by serious and creative thinkers on philosophy, psychology, science, society and culture
An early morning view across an old bridge towards the spires of a historic medieval city partially obscured by fog
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Home

Return of the descendants

I migrated to my ancestral homeland in a search for identity. It proved to be a humbling experience in (un)belonging

Jessica Buchleitner

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Economic history

Credit card nation

Americans have always borrowed, but how exactly did their lives become so entangled with the power of plastic cards?

Sean H Vanatta

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Metaphysics

The enchanted vision

Love is much more than a mere emotion or moral ideal. It imbues the world itself and we should learn to move with its power

Mark Vernon

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Knowledge

What is ‘lived experience’?

The term is ubiquitous and double-edged. It is both a key source of authentic knowledge and a danger to true solidarity

Patrick J Casey

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Human rights and justice

My elusive pain

The lives of North Africans in France are shaped by a harrowing struggle to belong, marked by postcolonial trauma

Farah Abdessamad

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Thinkers and theories

Philosophy is an art

For Margaret Macdonald, philosophical theories are akin to stories, meant to enlarge certain aspects of human life

Peter West

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Neuroscience

How to make a map of smell

We can split light by a prism, sounds by tones, but surely the world of odour is too complex and personal? Strangely, no

Jason Castro

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Religion

Conscientious unbelievers

How, a century ago, radical freethinkers quietly and persistently subverted Scotland’s Christian establishment

Felicity Loughlin

An oversized yellow plastic revolver gun displayed outside a brightly painted shop. There are palm trees in the background
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History of technology

Why America fell for guns

The US today has extraordinary levels of gun ownership. But to see this as a venerable tradition is to misread history

Megan Kang

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Psychiatry and psychotherapy

The therapist who hated me

Going to a child psychoanalyst four times a week for three years was bad enough. Reading what she wrote about me was worse

Michael Bacon

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Consciousness and altered states

A reader’s guide to microdosing

How to use small doses of psychedelics to lift your mood, enhance your focus, and fire your creativity

Tunde Aideyan

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Ethics

The scourge of lookism

It is time to take seriously the painful consequences of appearance discrimination in the workplace

Andrew Mason