Philosophy
essay
Work
Fuck work
Economists believe in full employment. Americans think that work builds character. But what if jobs aren’t working anymore?
James Livingston
video
Biology
Watch a single cell become a complete organism in six pulsing minutes of timelapse
6 minutes
idea
War and peace
What did Hannah Arendt really mean by the banality of evil?
Thomas White
essay
Meaning and the good life
Indifference is a power
As legions of warriors and prisoners can attest, Stoicism is not grim resolve but a way to wrest happiness from adversity
Lary Wallace
essay
Gender and identity
Gender is not a spectrum
The idea that ‘gender is a spectrum’ is supposed to set us free. But it is both illogical and politically troubling
Rebecca Reilly-Cooper
idea
Philosophy of science
Why philosophy is so important in science education
Subrena E Smith
video
Beauty and aesthetics
This is the final resting place of your cast-off clothing
14 minutes
essay
Philosophy of mind
The problem of mindfulness
Mindfulness promotes itself as value-neutral but it is loaded with (troubling) assumptions about the self and the cosmos
Sahanika Ratnayake
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
Ethics
A theory of jerks
Are you surrounded by fools? Are you the only reasonable person around? Then maybe you’re the one with the jerkitude
Eric Schwitzgebel
essay
Ethics
Kids? Just say no
You don’t have to dislike children to see the harms done by having them. There is a moral case against procreation
David Benatar
essay
Logic and probability
Beyond true and false
Buddhist philosophy is full of contradictions. Now modern logic is learning why that might be a good thing
Graham Priest
idea
Knowledge
You don’t have a right to believe whatever you want to
Daniel DeNicola
idea
Human rights and justice
Why the trial by ordeal was actually an effective test of guilt
Peter T Leeson
idea
Pleasure and pain
Psychogenic shivers: why we get the chills when we aren’t cold
Félix Schoeller
essay
Political philosophy
The power thinker
Original, painstaking, sometimes frustrating and often dazzling. Foucault’s work on power matters now more than ever
Colin Koopman
essay
Information and communication
The new mind control
The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence that can flip elections and manipulate everything we say, think and do
Robert Epstein
idea
History of ideas
A philosophical approach to routines can illuminate who we really are
Solmu Anttila
essay
Neuroscience
The real problem
It looks like scientists and philosophers might have made consciousness far more mysterious than it needs to be
Anil K Seth
idea
History of ideas
How Camus and Sartre split up over the question of how to be free
Sam Dresser
idea
History of ideas
Before you can be with others, first learn to be alone
Jennifer Stitt
essay
Sex and sexuality
Pornucopia
Critics say that porn degrades women, dulls sexual pleasure, and ruins authentic relationships – are they right?
Maria Konnikova
essay
Meaning and the good life
The meanings of life
Happiness is not the same as a sense of meaning. How do we go about finding a meaningful life, not just a happy one?
Roy F Baumeister
idea
Philosophy of science
You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time
Elise Crull