Philosophy
essay
Ethics
Moral refuge
You can believe in border control yet protect those fleeing to safety. So what is our ethical obligation to refugees?
Bradley Hillier-Smith
video
Personality
A ‘little thief’ turned career criminal recounts a life on the wrong side of the law
5 minutes
essay
Illness and disease
Permission to be ill
It took months for my functional neurological disorder to finally be diagnosed. It’s a condition that must be recognised
Kevin Aho
essay
Stories and literature
Our narrative prison
The three-act ‘hero’s journey’ has long been the most prominent kind of story. What other tales are there to tell?
Eliane Glaser
essay
Religion
Demonology
By turns benign and malign, powerful and vulnerable, earthbound and aerial, daimons across the world resemble one another
David Gordon White
essay
Philosophy of language
Extraterrestrial tongues
Imagining how aliens might communicate prepares us for first contact and illuminates the nature of our own languages
Nikhil Mahant
essay
Art
The ecstatic swoon
As Stendhal knew, the reason for art is to make you feel. Do not try to grasp the artwork: allow it to grasp you instead
Robert D Zaretsky
essay
Human rights and justice
Struggling to wake
After a murderous kidnapping in Nigeria, I launched a campaign to put a stop to the abductions. Why did no one listen?
Ayisha Osori
video
Values and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
7 minutes
essay
Cosmology
Just a pale blue dot
When we see the Earth as ‘a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam’ what do we learn about human significance?
Tim Bayne
essay
Philosophy of science
More-than-human science
When AI takes over the practice of science we will likely find the results strange and incomprehensible. Should we worry?
Brandon Boesch
video
Meaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
essay
Thinkers and theories
The truth about love
In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates shared a theory of love from the teachings of a ‘non-Athenian woman’. Who was she really?
Armand D’Angour
essay
Death
The last letter
Condemned to death by firing squad, French resistance fighters put pen to paper. Their dying words can teach us how to live
Daniel R Brunstetter
essay
Meaning and the good life
Welcome to the Chaoscene
The climate crisis is here. In order to thrive in these dangerous and precarious times, we must build resilient communities
Rupert Read
video
History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
essay
Philosophy of mind
By the light of brahman
Ideas from classical Indian philosophy help illuminate the enigmas of selfhood, consciousness and the nature of reality
Anand Vaidya & Manjula Menon
video
Meaning and the good life
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times
29 minutes
essay
Language and linguistics
The lonely life of a glyph-breaker
The heroic days of deciphering hieroglyphics and cuneiform make for great stories, but will we ever see that happen again?
Francesco Perono Cacciafoco
essay
Physics
The stagnation of physics
Physicists today need to jettison the all-too-attractive myth that they are uncovering the hidden reality of our Universe
Adrien De Sutter
essay
Bioethics
Why the cat wags her tail
Here’s a puzzle: how could evolution favour such a costly, frivolous and fun activity as animal play?
Mathilde Tahar-Malaussena
video
Virtues and vices
Why Bennie tried to disappear, and what happened when he was found decades later
16 minutes
essay
Philosophy of mind
Suffused with causality
Humans have a superpower that makes us uniquely capable of controlling the world: our ability to understand cause and effect
Mariel Goddu
essay
Food and drink
Adjust your disgust
The future of food is nutritious and sustainable – if we can overcome our instinctual revulsion to insects and lab-grown meat
Alexandra Plakias