Philosophy Science Psychology Society Culture

DonateNewsletterSIGN IN

Philosophy of mind

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

Explore more Philosophy

A man in a blue shirt playing a saxophone against a dark background.

essayConsciousness and altered states

Kind of confusing

Is consciousness like jazz, something hard to pin down? Or is it more like the biology of dolphins, odd but natural?

Tim Bayne

Yellow slime mould on textured tree bark, showcasing intricate branching patterns.

essayBiology

Memories without brains

Certain slime moulds can make decisions, solve mazes and remember things. What can we learn from the blob?

Matthew Sims

videoPhilosophy of mind

‘Am I not at least something?’ A surreal dive into Descartes’s Meditations

3 minutes

Black and white photo of people wrapped in shawls sitting with light and smoke creating dramatic shadows and highlights.

essayPhilosophy 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

A child in a pink raincoat jumping in a puddle on a city street on a rainy day with terraced houses in the background.

essayPhilosophy 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

Photo of Daniel Dennett looking to the side with a white beard and glasses wearing a suit against a black background.

essayPhilosophy of mind

The stories of Daniel Dennett

Often metaphorical and allusive, the philosopher’s work will long be remembered for how it grappled with everyday thought

Tim Bayne

Cartoon of three surgeons wearing scrubs and masks performing surgery on a patient, with surgical lights overhead.

videoBioethics

What a 1970 experiment reveals about the possibility and perils of ‘head transplants’

6 minutes

Photo of shattered glass with multiple cracks against a black background.

essayPhilosophy of mind

Rage against the machine

For all the promise and dangers of AI, computers plainly can’t think. To think is to resist – something no machine does

Alva Noë

Close-up of a dog with blue and brown eyes, grey and white fur, looking directly at the camera.

videoNeuroscience

Dog vision is a trendy topic, but what can we really know about how they see?

11 minutes

Medieval manuscript illustration of a goat and a person holding a disc, with gold circles in the background, surrounded by text in Latin script.

essayPhilosophy of mind

The problem of erring animals

Three medieval thinkers struggled to explain how animals could make mistakes – and uncovered the nature of nonhuman minds

Sam Alma

X-ray image of a single flower with visible petals, stem, and internal structures on a black background.

essayPhilosophy of mind

Do plants have minds?

In the 1840s, the iconoclastic scientist Gustav Fechner made an inspired case for taking seriously the interior lives of plants

Rachael Petersen

A mural depicting houses and a woman, with a man walking in front; snow is falling, and there’s snow on the ground.

essayLogic and probability

What is incoherence?

We can all be inconsistent. Philosophy illuminates a bigger puzzle: how do we hold contradictory beliefs at the same time?

Alex Worsnip

People dressed in horned costumes and holding pitchforks surrounded by red smoke at night during a festival or celebration.

essayAnimals and humans

An animal myself

When we imagine ourselves as another creature, we become more attuned to the world around us – and better at being human

Erica Berry

A woman operates an antique phonograph next to a man wearing a traditional Native American headdress in a sepia-toned photograph.

essayLanguage and linguistics

Our language, our world

Linguistic relativity holds that your worldview is structured by the language you speak. Is it true? History shines a light

James McElvenny

Close-up of a person’s face in low light, showing their ear with an earring and textured skin.

essayPhilosophy of mind

What colour do you see?

New research is uncovering the hidden differences in how people experience the world. The consequences are unsettling

Gary Lupyan

A crab is seen on a sandy beach. In the background and out of focus is a woman in a swimsuit

essayPhilosophy of mind

What is it like to be a crab?

Consciousness science should move past a focus on complex mammalian brains to study the behaviour of ‘simpler’ animals

Kristin Andrews

videoTechnology and the self

Why we should worry less about ‘sentient’ AIs and more about what we’re teaching them

16 minutes

Illustration showing a book with a human head and neurons, connected to icons of a heart, dove, ghost, face, and geometric shapes, all crossed out.

videoPhilosophy of mind

Do we have good reasons to believe in beliefs? A radical philosophy of mind says no

5 minutes

Abstract sculpture of a human head with intricate lines extending from the top against a green background, encircled by two semi-transparent rings.

videoPhilosophy of mind

We may never settle the ‘free will’ debate, but tapping into it is still worthwhile

32 minutes

videoPhilosophy of mind

An enigmatic ‘story of consciousness’ told through 19th-century engravings

7 minutes

A group of four women and a man, all holding their fingers to their temples in concentration, with the man wearing a turban adorned with a star.

essayPhilosophy of mind

Super-cooperators

Clear and direct telepathic communication is unlikely to be developed. But brain-to-brain links still hold great promise

Gary Lupyan & Andy Clark

Children in uniforms sitting and listening attentively, with some wearing yellow and green while others are in blue blazers and ties.

essayPhilosophy of mind

Philosophy’s blindspot

Education has long been ignored by contemporary philosophers. That is a myopic view that must change

David Bakhurst

A boy sleeps sitting against a resting cow on a paved street, surrounded by pigeons.

essayConsciousness and altered states

Seeing and somethingness

An evolutionary approach to consciousness can resolve the ‘hard problem’ – with radical implications for animal sentience

Nicholas Humphrey

Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches showing swirling water currents and writing in his characteristic mirror script on a sepia-toned paper.

essayNeuroscience

The turbulent brain

Energy flow between brain and environment drives the non-equilibrium that sustains life. Could turbulence help us thrive?

Morten L Kringelbach & Gustavo Deco