Explore philosophy through its most famous quotes! Today: Immanuel Kant on how to treat human beings. (more...)

Explore philosophy through its most famous quotes! Today: Philosopher and Theologian Albert Schweitzer on the Reverence for Life. (more...)

Explore philosophy through its most famous quotes. Today: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: “It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul…” (more...)

Superhero Thought Experiments, by Chris Gavaler and Nathaniel Goldberg, is a very enjoyable book that presents classic arguments from philosophy by discussing examples of superhero comics. (more...)

Robert Rodriguez’ “The Book of Hermits” is a work of impressive scholarship, covering the global history and lore of eremitism from antiquity to the present. (more...)

Altogether this is the most comprehensive account of how the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ came to attain its current ubiquity that has yet been written. (more...)

Hobbes’s conception of humankind in a state of nature begins with the idea that everyone is more or less equal and free. (more...)

Universal Basic Income, or UBI, implies the regular, universal, unconditional transfer of an equal sum of money to all eligible citizens. (more...)

Philosophical reflections about Israel’s response to the 7th October 2023 attack by Hamas, exposing inconsistencies, poor reasoning and immoralities, with a final touch of Kant and Nietzsche. (more...)

In her honest and entertaining book “One Hundred Days of Solitude: Losing Myself and Finding Grace on a Zen Retreat,” Zen teacher Jane Dobisz recalls the three months she spent as a young person alone in a hut in the woods, bowing, chanting and meditating. (more...)

For Heidegger, we let things be what they are. Chōmei, steeped in the Buddhist conception of the interdependence of everything, would concur. (more...)

The Dao De Jing is often not so different from other philosophies of its time. Acting according to nature, virtue as a skill, and the Daoist praise of humility are reminiscent of similar passages in the works of Stoics, Epicureans and Aristotle. (more...)

Are we ever allowed to kill one in order to save many lives? Utilitarianism would look at the overall benefit and conclude that this might be permissible. (more...)

We are not water pills. We are highly scientific magic pills based on an ancient organic recipe. (more...)

What is meant is a form of respect that is a condition, one might say a conceptual precursor, to love proper. (more...)

A core feature of Kant’s ethics is his insistence on the value of one’s motivation for the morality of an action. As opposed to utilitarianism, Kant does not look at the consequences when judging actions, but only at what he calls the “good will.” (more...)

Nozick asked readers to imagine a machine produced by “super-duper neuropsychologists” that could give you any experience you could think of without you realising it was all a computer simulation. He called it the Experience Machine. (more...)

How should we go about distributing a scarce vaccine? Philosopher John Rawls formulated two principles of justice that we can use to guide our decisions. (more...)

In 1935, a bad trip triggered Jean-Paul Sartre’s deep-rooted fear of sea creatures. Suddenly, he found himself surrounded by crabs and lobsters. (more...)

John Horton Conway (1937-2020), mathematician, inventor of the “Game of Life” simulation of cellular automata. (more...)

Thales of Miletus is generally cited as one of the first philosophers, although his contributions extended to many sciences and even to business endeavors. (more...)

Why does 2+2=4…? The answer may not be as simple as one thinks. (more...)

This raises a question: does Darwin’s argument no longer hold up in a Kurzweilian world where we might not die of old age at all? (more...)

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was interested in self-reliance, self-preservation and self-promotion. These things motivated his writing of The Prince and these were its themes. (more...)

Leonardo Caffo interviews Paul B. Preciado (more...)

Solon stood before the people of Athens, their murmurs rising and falling like the waves crashing against the harbor behind him. When he spoke, his voice carried conviction enough to command them all. (more...)

What is meant is a form of respect that is a condition, one might say a conceptual precursor, to love proper. (more...)