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Sam Dresser

Senior Editor, Aeon+Psyche

Sam has been with Aeon since its launch in 2012. He’s most interested in how to do philosophy and in the continental/analytic divide. History and politics are also amusing to him. He considers Evelyn Waugh to be a very funny writer and enjoys pubs more than he should.

See Sam Dresser’s profile on Psyche

Written by Sam Dresser

Black and white photo of a child walking towards a large tree on a foggy field.

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Thinkers and theories

Peak ellipsis

Does philosophy reside in the unsayable or should it care only for precision? Carnap, Heidegger and the great divergence

Sam Dresser

Vintage photo of a woman with short hair who is Margaret Mead looking at a carved wooden tribal figure against a dark background.

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Anthropology

The meaning of Margaret Mead

Mead argued that non-Western cultures offered alternative (often better) ways to be human. Why was she so vilified for it?

Sam Dresser

Colourful drawing of two men in suits shaking hands. One has a beard and pipe, the other is clean-shaven. Background is dark purple.

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Thinkers and theories

Freud versus Jung: a bitter feud over the meaning of sex

Sam Dresser

Black and white photo of a man in a suit and tie, looking slightly to his right, with a textured wall as the background.

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History of ideas

How Camus and Sartre split up over the question of how to be free

Sam Dresser

Edited by Sam Dresser

A person in a hospital gown sitting on a bed in a bright patient room, large window and privacy curtain visible.

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Human rights and justice

Knowledge and justice

Any legal system that fails to compensate people for epistemic harm is unjust. Their damage must be named and remedied

Mitch Woolery

An elderly person lying in a hospital bed in a bright room with a walker and a window nearby.

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Death

Freedom over death

Death is a certainty. But choosing how and when we depart is a modest opportunity for freedom – and dignity

Michael Cholbi

Photo of ornate 18th-century women’s shoes with floral embroidery and green trim on a neutral background.

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Design and fashion

Walk in these

Shoes are deeply personal, literally moulded to our lives. But they create our social lives as much as express them

Matthew McCormack

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

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Comparative 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

Renaissance drawing of two figures in robes in a circle on aged paper. One figure points to a celestial object composed of concentric circles on the left.

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Philosophy of science

Why philosophy of physics?

Some physicists reject philosophy as a distraction from ‘real’ science but it is in fact both useful and beautiful

James Read

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

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Comparative 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

Mosaic of a man in a red coat and wide brimmed hat holding a scythe with three workers in the background on a patterned brick wall.

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Human rights and justice

Levelling the world

Gerrard Winstanley led a small band of radicals whose vision of justice encompassed the globe and continues to inspire

Rowan Wilson

A murmuration of starlings forming a large, swirling shape in the early evening sky above silhouetted trees.

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Neuroscience

The entangled brain

The brain is much less like a machine than it is like the murmurations of a flock of starlings or an orchestral symphony

Luiz Pessoa

A colourful underground car park with numbered pillars and painted lanes with directional arrows.

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Cities

Cars beneath the ground

The explosion of automobiles shaped cities and lives. But an enduring problem remains: where to put them when they’re parked

Alfie Robinson

Photo of a woman in a white dress and purple headscarf leaning against a wall, covering her face near green foliage.

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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

Black and white photo of a firing squad in a wooded area with snow on the ground, soldiers aiming rifles at standing figures.

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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

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

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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