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Philosophy

Essays and videos on philosophy, the history of ideas, ethics and life’s big questions
A colourful book illustration of a weary traveller in a forest being awoken by a peacock tugging at his sleeve
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Comparative philosophy

Folklore is philosophy

Both folktales and formal philosophy unsettle us into thinking anew about our cherished values and views of the world

Abigail Tulenko

A man dressed in white robes with his face obscured is seen in a cave entrance carved from rock
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Comparative philosophy

Forging philosophy

A 17th-century classic of Ethiopian philosophy might be a fake. Does it matter, or is that just how philosophy works?

Jonathan Egid

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Comparative philosophy

How to become wise

Practice is at the heart of Korean philosophy. In order to lead a good life, hone your daily rituals of self-cultivation

Kevin Cawley

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Metaphysics

We are interwoven beings

A dragon needs the clouds and the wind in order to fly. What happens when we too relinquish individualistic reasoning?

Mercedes Valmisa

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Comparative philosophy

Medieval but not Christian

It’s shocking that histories of medieval philosophy celebrate only Christian thinkers, ignoring Islamic and Jewish thought

Yitzhak Y Melamed

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History of ideas

The adversarial culture in philosophy does not serve the truth

Martin Lenz

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Thinkers and theories

Pragmatism endures

Pragmatism was not eclipsed after Dewey: it has been a constant and dominant force in philosophy for nearly 100 years

Cheryl Misak & Robert B Talisse

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video

Thinkers and theories

A Buddhist monk probes Heidegger on the limits, and necessity, of philosophy

16 minutes

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Thinkers and theories

The American Aristotle

Charles Sanders Peirce was a brilliant philosopher, mathematician and scientist. His polymathic work should be better known

Daniel Everett

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Thinkers and theories

Marxism and Buddhism

Life is suffering, whether you sit under a Bodhi Tree or stand with the workers. But do the two schools agree on the remedy?

Adrian Kreutz

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Thinkers and theories

Ibn Tufayl and the story of the feral child of philosophy

Marwa Elshakry & Murad Idris

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Thinkers and theories

Australian philosophy

Despite its reputation as remote and anti-intellectual, Australia has exercised a surprisingly deep influence on philosophy

Peter Godfrey-Smith

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Beauty and aesthetics

Tidying up is not joyful but another misuse of Eastern ideas

Amy Olberding

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Global history

Don’t let the rise of Europe steal world history

Peter Frankopan

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Philosophy of mind

Buddhism and self-deception

How can I logically manage to deceive myself? Buddhist thought offers a way out of the philosophical paradox

Katie Javanaud

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Technology and the self

Modern technology is akin to the metaphysics of Vedanta

Akhandadhi Das

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Religion

Breath of life

Shinto is uniquely Japanese, yet embodies a once-universal animistic religion of wind and fire, gods and animal spirits

Brian Victoria

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Comparative philosophy

First women of philosophy

Philosophy was once a woman’s world, ranging across Asia, Africa and Latin America. It’s time to reclaim that lost realm

Dag Herbjørnsrud

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Thinkers and theories

How Al-Farabi drew on Plato to argue for censorship in Islam

Rashmee Roshan Lall

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Philosophy of religion

A funhouse mirror for the soul

Alan Jay Levinovitz

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History of ideas

A truly African philosophy

‘Consolation philosophy’ understands the human being as a unity of feeling and reason, in a cosmos rich with primal emotion

Ada Agada

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Philosophy of religion

The Buddhist monk who became an apostle for sexual freedom

Donald S Lopez Jr

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Ethics

Life on the slippery Earth

Aztec moral philosophy has profound differences from the Greek tradition, not least its acceptance that nobody is perfect

Sebastian Purcell

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Comparative philosophy

The philosophy of Mexicanness

Carlos Alberto Sánchez & Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr