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History of ideas

Essays and videos on philosophy, the history of ideas, ethics and life’s big questions

Beauty and aesthetics Bioethics Comparative philosophy Cosmopolitanism Death Ethics History of ideas Knowledge Logic and probability Meaning and the good life Metaphysics Philosophy of language Philosophy of mind Philosophy of religion Philosophy of science Political philosophy Thinkers and theories Values and beliefs Virtues and vices

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Painting of philosophers gathered in a grand classical building, featuring figures in colourful robes with an archway framing the sky in the background.

videoHistory of ideas

How to read ‘The School of Athens’ – a triumph of Renaissance art

25 minutes

Abstract painting with two large, nearly identical white panels divided by a thin vertical line.

essayMetaphysics

From nothing, everything

The idea of nothing pushes at the limits of thought, spawning paradoxes that have long nourished art, philosophy, and science

Victoria Wohl

Illustration of an ancient Greek temple with the golden ratio spiral overlay, featuring bright colours and clear skies.

videoMathematics

Spiral into the ‘golden ratio’ – and separate the myths from the maths

4 minutes

Painting of blind men with sticks leading one another, one has fallen, landscape and church in the background.

essayThinkers and theories

The French liar

René Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, was furiously condemned by his contemporaries. Why did they fear him?

Sandrine Parageau

Photo of a rustic stone house with a shaded garden path lined with lush greenery and flowering plants under a clear blue sky.

essayHistory of ideas

From scattered traces

How the ideas circulating among one noblewoman’s coterie in 16th-century Dubrovnik anticipated modern feminist thought

Luka Boršić

A dimly lit bar with red decor, a man sitting at the counter, a bartender, and a woman entering through a door.

essayComparative philosophy

What is Ethiopian philosophy?

Riven by two competing schools of thought, the future of philosophical enquiry in Ethiopia stands at a crossroads

Fasil Merawi

Aerial photo of turquoise ocean with a sinuous sand-coloured formation running diagonally, creating a striking contrast.

essayOceans and water

An oceanic tempo

An appreciation of the immensity embedded in the ocean’s cycles offers a way to reimagine our relationship with time

James Bradley

Street food vendor cooking skewers on a grill as people gather to eat and buy in a bustling outdoor setting.

essayComparative philosophy

A cure for individualism

It runs deeply through the Western outlook, hailed and condemned in equal measures. For a corrective, look to Confucius

Tim Connolly

Painting of a man on a rocky cliff overlooking a foggy mountainous landscape, with a walking stick in hand.

essayArt

Out of the fog

It’s a ‘failed painting’ that obscures the profound power of German Romanticism. Why do we love the ‘Wanderer’ so much?

Gianluca Didino

Painting of two armoured warriors confronting three hooded witches under a turbulent sky, with one warrior holding a spear.

videoHistory

Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches

13 minutes

Painting of an angel in an orange glow flying with small birds across a night sky over a cityscape and bare trees.

essayHistory of science

Legacy of the angels

When medieval scholars sought to understand the nature of angels, they unwittingly laid the foundations of modern physics

Rebekah Wallace

Black and white night photo of historic Gothic-style buildings with arched windows, towers and courtyards.

essayHistory of ideas

Ghosts among the philosophers

Cambridge, home of analytic philosophy, was also a hotbed of psychical research. How did this spooky subject take root?

Matyáš Moravec

Black and white photo of a man with glasses and a beard, resting his chin on his hand, wearing a suit.

videoArt

Background music was the radical invention of a trailblazing composer

17 minutes

A photo of a person walking on a snowy path beside an icy river with floating ice chunks.

essayThinkers and theories

The winter of civilisation

Byung-Chul Han’s relentless critiques of digital capitalism reveal how this suffocating system creates hollowed-out lives

Josh Cohen

A man speaking on stage with a headset microphone wearing glasses and a black sweater gesturing expressively with his hands.

videoMetaphysics

What do past, present and future mean to a philosopher of time?

55 minutes

Black-and-white photo of two women preening a toddler who is sitting on a wall and sucking dummy, with a brick house and a washing line in the background.

essayThinkers and theories

So many unmarried men

For Mary Midgley, the Western philosophical tradition is shaped by the fact that its greatest practitioners were bachelors

Ellie Robson

Surreal abstract painting with eyes, lips and leaf shapes in soft colours on paper.

videoArt

Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement

15 minutes

Medieval painting of a man in a cosmic circle with zodiac symbols surrounded by blue and red patterns.

essayHistory of science

The birth of naturalism

The modern era is often seen as the triumph of science over supernaturalism. But what really happened is far more interesting

Peter Harrison

Photograph of two silhouetted figures on a sunlit path surrounded by dark geometric shadows and structures.

essayKnowledge

The penumbral plunge

Diving into the ring of darkness beyond things easily answerable, asking ‘Why?’ questions is what make humans awesome

Eric Schwitzgebel

Painting of a stormy sea with two sailing ships in distress and people struggling on the rocky shore.

videoBeauty and aesthetics

In art, the sublime is a feedback loop, evolving with whatever’s next to threaten us

9 minutes

Historic photo of a large crowd gathered outside a gated building surrounded by trees, while two women in long dresses approach them from the building.

essayThinkers and theories

Who can claim Aristotle?

The endless battle over his legacy testifies to his great authority – and the power of his thought to make the world better

Edith Hall

Painting of a man and woman in elegant 18th-century attire sitting on a pink sofa with ornate decoration.

essayHistory of ideas

Settling accounts

Before he was famous, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was Louise Dupin’s scribe. It’s her ideas on inequality that fill his writings

Rebecca Wilkin

Photo of an ancient male statue with a cloth draped over his shoulder and arm, three people are sitting on a bench to the side of the statue

essayThinkers 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

Painting of two men sitting in a barn, one on a bench and the other on a chair, with a horse and pumpkins in the background.

essayHistory 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