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Sam Dresser
Editor, Aeon

I'm an editor at Aeon. For any and all questions you have concerning Aeon, feel free to email me at sam.dresser@aeon.co. Questions about philosophy, politics, history, and the meaning of life also welcome.

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Written by Sam Dresser

Edited by Sam Dresser

Essay/
History of Ideas
Philosophy’s first steps

Science asks and answers its big questions, so why is philosophy taking its time? Because it’s only just getting started

J L Schellenberg

Essay/
Knowledge
Escape the echo chamber

First you don’t hear other views. Then you can’t trust them. Your personal information network entraps you just like a cult

C Thi Nguyen

Essay/
Human Evolution
In to Asia

New evidence about the ancient humans who occupied Asia is cascading in: the story of our species needs rewriting again

Christopher Bae

Essay/
Politics & Government
Anti-anti-communism

Millions of Russians and eastern Europeans now believe that they were better off under communism. What does this signify?

Kristen R Ghodsee & Scott Sehon

Essay/
Values & Beliefs
Slow Thought: a manifesto

We need a philosophy of Slow Thought to ease thinking into a more playful and porous dialogue about what it means to live

Vincenzo Di Nicola

Essay/
Mental Health
The usefulness of dread

My anxiety has been lifelong but I would not wish it away. It has made me the philosopher – and person – that I am today

Samir Chopra

Essay/
Education
The five-paragraph fetish

Writing essays by a formula was meant to be a step on the way. Now it’s the stifling goal for student and scholar alike

David Labaree

Essay/
Knowledge
Self-evident

Contrary to recent opinion, there is such a thing as the self, and it is empirically amenable to scientific investigation

Şerife Tekin

Essay/
Economics
Economics is quantum

Money and brains are both quantum phenomena – so it's not surprising that economics is overdue for a quantum revolution

David Orrell

Essay/
Meaning & the Good Life
Natural-born existentialists

Ethics cannot be based on human nature because, as evolutionary biology tells us, there is no such thing

Ronnie de Sousa

Essay/
History of Ideas
The African Enlightenment

The highest ideals of Locke, Hume and Kant were first proposed more than a century earlier by an Ethiopian in a cave

Dag Herbjørnsrud

Essay/
Ethics
The ethics of ET

The discovery of independent life beyond Earth would have deep philosophical implications for us, and our ideas of morality

Tim Mulgan

Essay/
History
Do civilisations collapse?

The idea that the Maya or Easter Islanders experienced an apocalyptic end makes for good television but bad archaeology

Guy D Middleton

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