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Aeon is a registered charity committed to the spread of knowledge and a cosmopolitan worldview. Our mission is to create a sanctuary online for serious thinking.

No ads, no paywall, no clickbait – just thought-provoking ideas from the world’s leading thinkers, free to all. But we can’t do it without you.

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Ideas

Latest Popular


Idea/Consciousness & Altered States

Our illusory sense of agency has a deeply important social purpose

Chris Frith

Idea/Stories & Literature

This ancient mnemonic technique builds a palace of memory

Lynne Kelly

Idea/Space Exploration

To find aliens, we must think of life as we don’t know it

Ramin Skibba

Idea/Travel

We have a new word for that feeling when travel makes everything new

Liam Heneghan

Idea/Stories & Literature

The 13th-century revolution that made modern poetry possible

Eric Weiskott

Idea/History of Science

The most wonderful words in science: ‘We have no idea… yet!’

Daniel Whiteson

Idea/Race

How ‘white people’ were invented by a playwright in 1613

Ed Simon

Idea/Cities

This striking feature of Manila makes it an emblematic global city

Nancy Kwak

Idea/Ethics

A ‘humanely’ killed animal is still killed – and that’s wrong

Anna E Charlton & Gary L Francione

Idea/History of Science

Why religion is not going away and science will not destroy it

Peter Harrison

Idea/Cultures & Languages

Language dreams: an ancient tongue awakens in a Jewish baby

Lewis Glinert

Idea/Mathematics

Global cooperation depends on the strength of local connections

Benjamin Allen

Idea/Metaphysics

Imagination is a powerful tool: why is philosophy afraid of it?

Amy Kind

Idea/History

Can reason make room for religion in public life?

Ruth Jackson & Hanna Weibye

Idea/Demography & Migration

More than just sanctuary, migrants need social citizenship

Nancy Berlinger

Idea/Psychiatry & Psychotherapy

The history of brainwashing is a red flag for techno-therapy

David Saunders

Idea/Love & Friendship

Keeping it in the family: why we pick the partners we do

Tamsin Saxton

Idea/Ethics

Sometimes giving a person a choice is an act of terrible cruelty

Lisa Tessman

Idea/Death

What are the ethical consequences of immortality technology?

Francesca Minerva & Adrian Rorheim

Idea/History

Far-distant days: the past has a dizzying power to ground us

Ben Thomas

Idea/Ethics

Why vegetarians should be prepared to bend their own rules

Alberto Giubilini

Idea/Old Age & Death

How can life-extending treatments be available for all?

Christopher Wareham

Idea/Philosophy of Mind

If I teleport from Mars, does the original me get destroyed?

Charlie Huenemann

Idea/History

Populism now divides, yet once it united the working class

Adrienne Petty

Idea/Death

Humans are the only animals who crave oblivion through suicide

Nicholas Humphrey

Idea/Stories & Literature

Black stories matter: on the whiteness of children’s books

Andrea Adomako

Idea/Illness & Disease

Fatal nurture: what a rare disorder says about ‘bad mothers’

Chris Millard

Idea/Beauty & Aesthetics

The revolutionary figure of the beautiful, self-improved soul

Justine Kolata

Idea/Sports & Games

Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism

Kate Raworth

Idea/Astronomy

What high-speed astronomy can tell us about the galactic zoo

Christopher Kochanek