Philosophy

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

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

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

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

6 minutes

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

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

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

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

What colour do you see?

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

Gary Lupyan

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

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

5 minutes

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

32 minutes

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

7 minutes

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

Philosophy’s blindspot

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

David Bakhurst

The philosopher’s zombie

The infamous thought experiment, flawed as it is, does demonstrate one thing: physics alone can’t explain consciousness

Dan Falk

Embodied cognition seems intuitive, but philosophy can push it to some strange places

14 minutes

How do you know?

Correct information doesn’t always come with its own bright halo of truth. What makes something worth believing?

Nate Sheff