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...)

A history of philosophy in its most famous quotes. Today: Jeremy Bentham on the suffering of animals: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” (more...)

Explore philosophy through its most famous quotes! Today: Socrates on knowing that you know nothing. (more...)

Peter Cave’s “How to Think Like a Philosopher” is a very enjoyable introduction into Western philosophy. Light, conversational, entertaining and intellectually stimulating. (more...)

Irvin Yalom’s (b. 1931) The Spinoza Problem: A Novel (Basic Books 2013) intertwines history and philosophy, offering a fresh perspective on two distinct but connected lives. (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...)

Ethical AI is less about building machines with moral status and more about building institutions with moral stamina. (more...)

Did you know that singer Olivia Newton-John is the granddaughter of the famous physicist Max Born, one of the two people who claimed to have discovered the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics? (more...)

Being lazy, far from being something good, would be, for Aristotle, a total failure of a human being and the best way for someone to make sure that they will never reach true happiness. (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...)

Hermits, from the Greek “eremites,” (=men of the desert), are found in all cultures and at all times. In this article, we look at the phenomenon of hermit life as a whole, before we go into more detail in future posts in this series. (more...)

Hermits have always lived apart from the societies of their times. But do they have the secret key to happiness? (more...)

Why is there such a difference between the picture of morality one gets from books and the one so many people encounter in real life? (more...)

This a systematic survey of the arguments and counterarguments that are most commonly in play when considering the ethical rights and wrong of euthanasia and whether it should be legally permitted. (more...)

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

It is often supposed that greater empathy is a good thing. But this is a mistake, unless one assumes that being empathetic will inevitably bring it about that one treats others better. (more...)

Humans are the only species that can both cause and contemplate their own extinction. Our enormous technological and philosophical abilities put us in a unique existential situation. (more...)

Lying is generally perceived as unethical behaviour. Depending on the moral theory used, lying in special circumstances (for example, “white” lies or lies that benefit others or avert harm) might be morally justifiable. (more...)

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was a British philosopher and writer, one of the most important analytic philosophers of the 20th century. (more...)

Last Friday was the birthday of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, whom they called the Mahatma, the Great Soul. (more...)

Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek (August 19, 1921 - October 24, 1991). (more...)

The Qur’an says that God loves and is loved, and Muslims have argued for fourteen centuries about what that means. This guide explains the key Arabic words, sets out the three main theories – the theologians' love as obedience, the philosophers' love as cosmic attraction, and the Sufis' love as the secret of creation – and shows how the mystical tradition turned even Layla and Majnun into a parable of the soul. Part of our series on love in the world religions. (more...)

For two thousand years, ‘virtue’ was the central word in Western ethics – the name for whatever it is that makes a person good at being a person. Then it nearly disappeared, and then it came back. This entry traces the concept from Homer and Socrates through Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Aquinas to Hume, Kant and the twentieth-century revival, and asks what a virtue actually is. (more...)

Virtue ethics asks not what you should do but what kind of person you should be. This guide explains the modern revival – Anscombe, Foot, Hursthouse, MacIntyre – its main varieties, its advantages over Kantian and utilitarian ethics, and the strongest objections to it. (more...)

Such examples point to the possibility of a non-ego-based ethics. They suggest that moral action does not require deliberation or even a sense of being a separate self. (more...)

Who was Aristotle, what did he write, and why does a thinker from the fourth century BCE still shape how we think about logic, nature, happiness and the good life? (more...)

Twenty-four centuries before the periodic table, Democritus of Abdera argued that everything – rocks, souls, colours, gods – is made of tiny uncuttable particles moving in empty space. He was ignored by Plato, refuted by Aristotle, and vindicated by modern science. This is who he was, what he taught, and why his ideas still unsettle us. (more...)