essay
Home
The joy of clutter
The world sees Japan as a paragon of minimalism. But its hidden clutter culture shows that ‘more’ can be as magical as ‘less’
Matt Alt
video
Meaning and the good life
Wander through the English countryside with two teens trying to make sense of the world
10 minutes
essay
Virtues and vices
Against humility
Intellectual humility has recently been hailed as the key to thinking well. The story of Barbara McClintock proves otherwise
Rachel Fraser
essay
Values and beliefs
My leap across the chasm
After years of debate and contemplation, I’ve come to think a heretical form of Christianity might be true. Here’s why
Philip Goff
essay
History of science
Clock time contra lived time
Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein fundamentally disagreed about the nature of time and how it can be measured. Who was right?
Evan Thompson
essay
Ethics
Main character syndrome
Why romanticising your own life is philosophically dubious, setting up toxic narratives and an inability to truly love
Anna Gotlib
video
Personality
A ‘dumpster archeologist’ reconstructs strangers’ stories via what they’ve discarded
14 minutes
essay
Thinkers and theories
The value of our values
When Nietzsche used the tools of philology to explore the nature of morality, he became a ‘philosopher of the future’
Alexander Prescott-Couch
essay
History of ideas
Philosophy of the people
How two amateur schools pulled a generation of thinkers from the workers and teachers of the 19th-century American Midwest
Joseph M Keegin
essay
Virtues and vices
Make it awkward!
Rather than being a cringey personal failing, awkwardness is a collective rupture – and a chance to rewrite the social script
Alexandra Plakias
essay
Metaphysics
Desperate remedies
In order to make headway on knotty metaphysical problems, philosophers should look to the methods used by scientists
Nina Emery
essay
Political philosophy
Citizens and spinning wheels
For Indians to be truly free, Gandhi argued they must take up traditional crafts. Was it a quixotic hope or inspired solution?
Benjamin Studebaker
video
Meaning and the good life
A Japanese religious community makes an unlikely home in the mountains of Colorado
9 minutes
essay
Political philosophy
C L R James and America
The brilliant Trinidadian thinker is remembered as an admirer of the US but he also warned of its dark political future
Harvey Neptune
essay
Thinkers and theories
Rawls the redeemer
For John Rawls, liberalism was more than a political project: it is the best way to fashion a life that is worthy of happiness
Alexandre Lefebvre
video
Bioethics
Is it ethical to have a second child so that your first might live?
10 minutes
essay
Anthropology
Your body is an archive
If human knowledge can disappear so easily, why have so many cultural practices survived without written records?
Helena Miton
essay
Biology
Seeing plants anew
The stunningly complex behaviour of plants has led to a new way of thinking about our world: plant philosophy
Stella Sandford
video
Meaning and the good life
‘Everydayness is the enemy’ – excerpts from the existentialist novel ‘The Moviegoer’
2 minutes
essay
Knowledge
Frameworks
Knowledge is often a matter of discovery. But when the nature of an enquiry itself is at question, it is an act of creation
Céline Henne
essay
History of ideas
All that we are
The philosophy of personalism inspired Martin Luther King’s dream of a better world. We still need its hopeful ideas today
Bennett Gilbert
video
Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
essay
Music
A novel kind of music
So-called ‘classical’ music was as revolutionary as the modern novel in its storytelling, harmony and depth
Joel Sandelson
essay
Psychiatry and psychotherapy
Decolonising psychology
At times complicit in racism and oppression, psychology has also been a fertile ground for radical and liberatory thought
Rami Gabriel