It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures. (Simone Weil) (more...)

From a Kantian lens, reducing a person to their appearance or sexuality treats them as a means to visual pleasure, not as a rational being. (more...)

The Creature, who appeared dimly fainter than his surroundings, threw back his head & laughed with a gayety incongruent with my own dread. (more...)

Liberalism is a political philosophy that centers on the idea of people being afforded fundamental freedoms or rights. (more...)

The beauty of a painting of a flower, mountain or sunset normally owes to how it depicts its object, to its rendering of nature. (more...)

Technology conditions us to spend less of our time experiencing life and more of our time recording it. (more...)

Moral value statements involve putting things in some order of worth, significance, or importance. (more...)

Descartes can be certain of nothing anymore. Two plus two might not equal four, triangles might not have three sides, the sky might not be blue. (more...)

Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Nemen sparked a firestorm in October 2021 when he posted on Linkedin that America hadn’t been paying enough attention to obesity’s role in aggravating Covid’s dangers. (more...)

Following my injury, I was bombarded by an overload of emotions: my anger over my entitlement to everything I’d lost, my deep and dark depression, my horror and fear of a future as a complete quadriplegic. (more...)

Who does not know that feeling when a discussion becomes unfair, as if sabotaged? You make a good point, but suddenly the person you’re talking to says something odd, absurd or irrelevant. (more...)

Would it matter if the entire human race became extinct? (more...)

I see myself and a multitude of other Grasshoppers engaged in playing the most elaborate, subtle, and challenging games. (more...)

EGO Hey, Philosophy. How can you help ensure the future of humanity? PHILOSOPHY (more...)

Shortlisted entry for the Daily Philosophy Global Essay Contest 2024. (more...)

. Shortlisted entry for the Daily Philosophy Global Essay Contest 2024. (more...)

Philosophy and the Climate Crisis. Shortlisted entry for the Daily Philosophy Global Essay Contest 2024. (more...)

How can philosophy help ensure the future of humanity? Shortlisted entry for the Daily Philosophy Global Essay Contest 2024. (more...)

There have been increasingly clamorous calls for the banning, removal, or controlling, or censoring of ‘misinformation’ as an enforced general policy. (more...)

We, the Jury, duly impaneled and sworn, upon our oaths, do find the defendant, of her own free will, as to Count One, guilty of First-degree Murder. (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...)

Here, instead of five people versus one person, the trolley is heading toward N cows and diverting it will kill one person. (more...)

My question was – and still is – a short good life with a pain free death, or no life at all, which would you prefer? A reply to Petrică Nițoaia. (more...)

Aspiring hermits have many motivations. Smith eloquently testifies to his reasons, some of them deeply personal. (more...)

Entropy can be calculated with a concept called multiplicity. The multiplicity is the number of indistinguishable possibilities that could cause the results we observe. (more...)

Ethical arguments against veganism are examined and refuted. (more...)

In the Republic, Plato speaks of society in metaphorical terms as “our city of words.” The dialogue is essentially about justice as a human virtue. (more...)

Just because we can automate something doesn’t mean that we won’t pay over the odds for an analogue version. (more...)

Are the people who perform evil acts ordinary or extraordinary? Just like other people or exceptional people? (more...)

The writer and philosopher Albert Camus was known for his existentialist essays, novels, and love of football. (more...)

What could have led to the fact that the study of philosophy does not encourage independent thinking? (more...)

Hánfēizǐ advocated a realist political philosophy and its aim was the establishment of order. The function of the state is to survive – to suppress internal strife and resist external aggression. (more...)

Pessimism today has an ambivalent status. On the one hand, even a cursory glance at the world reveals a depressing abundance of dreadful events, tendencies, and phenomena. (more...)

My eyes widen as I stare at the board, the possibilities beginning to fill my mind. (more...)

Interview with Jean Arnaud, a pioneer of the digital renaissance in art, philosophy, technology, and education. (more...)

We think our beliefs and attitudes, and even our feelings and moods, are more determined by a reasoning process that brings us to them than they are. (more...)

Kant on using reason to critically examine our inclinations and uncover the forces that manipulate and misinform us. (more...)

Bonanno stands apart with his radical, borderline utopian critique of modern society. (more...)

I married into Africa. That is, my wife is a member of a Xhosa clan – in fact, a descendant of the great King Mpondo. (more...)

Nothing is ever nothing. What a paradox! Everything is something, in a way. (more...)

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

Call me Gottlob. And just to make sure we don’t get off on the wrong foot, my name is indeed Gottlob. But what is the actual meaning of names? (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...)

1. What I wish to do is to look at the value of art in the wide human cultural context, most fundamentally indeed as part of the human condition. (more...)

Philosophy starts by questioning what the other sciences presuppose, the assumptions of all activity, cognition, and knowledge as a whole. (more...)

Humans are constitutively incapable of virtuous forms of life. Posthumans, of course, can aspire to much more. (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...)

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was ambivalent towards philosophy. In just the same way that philosophy purports to explain the world, so too does psychoanalysis. (more...)

Given that climate change is, quite literally, an existential problem, it’s strange that we’re not all rushing to solve it. (more...)

In this series of posts, BVE Hyde presents a short but complete history of Japanese thought. This second part focuses on Confucianism. (more...)

This is about humour. I shall not make any clear distinction between humour in general and jokes, only to say that jokes are archly and tightly structured set pieces and a subgroup within humour. (more...)

A Dialogue between Socrates and ChatGPT on Intelligence. (more...)

Seemingly intractable paradoxes involved in speaking of the ineffable are based on a mistake. (more...)

Plato’s Apology of Socrates is one of the greatest speeches in the history of mankind. It shows Socrates’ personality and humour, as well as being a meditation on justice and honesty. (more...)

In this series of posts, BVE Hyde presents a short but complete history of Japanese thought. This first part focuses on Japanese Buddhism. (more...)

We can change the way we perceive ourselves by a simple switch in our first-person perspective, argues author Brentyn J. Ramm, following Douglas Harding and Jean-Paul Sartre. (more...)

Sartre’s discourse “Existentialism is a Humanism” can be broken down into five concepts: Existence precedes essence, Freedom, Responsibility, Anguish and Bad Faith. (more...)

They’re saying Brian was never alive! They’re treating him like he wasn’t real, like he never existed! (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...)

What is Hermeneutics? ‘Hermeneutics’ is an ancient topic whose philosophical outlines have evolved through time. In a broad sense, hermeneutics can be defined simply as ‘interpretation,’ ‘the art of interpreting,’ or ‘the study of interpretation. (more...)

A dictionary of philosophy with one exatly entry for each letter. (more...)

What is postmodernism? A physiotherapy professor explains how postmodernism changed his views on medicine and health. (more...)

Technology might lead to widespread unemployment. But will this necessarily be a bad thing? Professor Michael Hauskeller on the future of work. (more...)

We all want our money to serve the right cause – but how can we make sure that it will? Catherine Greene on what is involved in ethical investing and ESG considerations. (more...)

In our societies, an impressive array of vices is on display. Hypocrisy, greed, cruelty, prejudice… But what if many of these vices were necessary for human life? (more...)

According to Immanuel Kant, practical jokes would be considered immoral because they treat the subject as mere means to others’ enjoyment. (more...)

What sort of rights should a fetus or embryo have? A clear, comprehensive review of the arguments. (more...)

According to Kant, we wouldn’t be able to talk about ethics at all if we couldn’t see us as free beings who are capable of deciding. (more...)

Does an ‘engaged’ Buddhist really have to draw on this picture of the Buddha as a ‘social activist’ to find support for their own activism? (more...)

I focus in this final piece on a neglected aspect of Buddha’s teachings: the condemnation of social activism and political engagement. (more...)

A poem by Professor Michael Hauskeller. (more...)

For Chuang Tzu, the Tao is the surface isness (the presenting phenomenology) of things. Excerpt from the book The Cicada and the Bird by Christopher Tricker. (more...)

Changing the world, challenging patriarchy, revolution, and the whole ethos of radical reformism is nothing like what the Buddha taught. (more...)

Ever since René Descartes wrote, in 1641, ‘The mind is really distinct from the body,’ we have struggled with the mind-body problem. (more...)

Buddhism is widely admired in the West for its commitments to progressive social activism. But is this really in the spirit of true Buddhism? (more...)

What are the books that brought us to philosophy? For John Shand, philosophy professor at the Open University, it was Karl Popper’s “The Open Society and Its Enemies” (more...)

The pursuit of happiness has always been one of the main driving forces of human lives. This article recounts the amazing history of the concept of happiness, from ancient times to today, from Eudaimonia to Gross National Happiness. (more...)

The poems of Homer, the Ilias and the Odyssey, mark the proper start of Greek civilization and can be seen as what shaped Greek identity, argues ancient philosophy Professsor Livio Rossetti. (more...)

An insightful new book sheds light on how a rich tapestry of religions answer life’s biggest questions. (more...)

A Short Story on Epistemic Humility and The Best Possible Life, All Things Considered (more...)

One way of thinking about and getting an understanding of Kant’s Categories is to draw an analogy with the Stevenson Screen. This article sheds light on what Kant’s Categories are and how they function in our understanding of the world. (more...)

Is abortion morally right? We look at the main arguments for and against abortion. (more...)

People as well as large-scale events, for example, the Durch Tulip Mania or the technology crash in the early 2000s, are sometimes said to be irrational. But what exactly do we mean by that? (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...)

Review of Uriah Kriegel (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2020, by Prof. Robert Zaborowski. (more...)

Adam Davidson describes the “Passion Economy” in a book released in 2020. This article shows why Davidson’s proposal is not a sustainable solution to fix our current relationship with work. (more...)

Awareness of the knowledge-effect is important because it is something we need strongly to guard against if we are to make good normative judgements. (more...)

Can we draw a line between people with psychiatric disorders and those without? (more...)

The main epistemic concern in the light of the potential ubiquity of deepfakes is not that we are going to be massively deceived. Global distrust and not global deception could be the ultimate consequence of deepfakes. (more...)

The limits of language are all there before us in the everyday. For there is no description or account of the wind on your face (nor of the experience of seeing a red rose) that could give you any idea at all what the wind on your face was like to have. (more...)

According to Shénnóng, rulers had a limited number of very simple functions, mainly concerning agriculture. A ruler should teach people agricultural arts, inspect their fields, and keep a grain store. (more...)

What is pure awareness? Douglas Harding (1909-2007) proposed a series of simple but surprising experiments that one can perform to learn more about oneself as the subject of one’s own first person view. (more...)

Since governments are charged with pursuing the popular well-being and not state power or prosperity, wars of aggression are illegitimate. - David Cockayne on how classic Confucianism would see wars. (more...)

In 1964, Bertrand Russell wrote that the philosopher’s duty was now to forget philosophy and to study “the probable effects of a nuclear war.” (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...)

Are we driving ourselves insane? And have we been doing so for over a hundred years? To understand this, we need to understand how we came to think of ourselves as depressed. (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...)

Radical scepticism has a good claim to be both the longest lasting tradition in philosophy and the consistently least popular. There’s a lot to be said for it. (more...)

What exactly do we mean when we say that “nothing matters”? More than sixty years ago, the British philosopher Richard Mervyn Hare attempted to answer this question in an early essay. (more...)

What makes our death bearable? How do we create meaning from the certainty of our own deaths? Prof. John Shand analyses the question. (more...)

What is especially intriguing for students of eremitism is the intimate interplay of personal motives and philosophical commitments behind Nanavira’s decision to live alone. (more...)

Luis de Miranda is the founder of the Philosophical Health movement, author of Being & Neonness (MIT Press) and Ensemblance (Edinburgh University Press). (more...)

I know it’s got to be done. Even so, I still feel bad about it. If it were up to me, we would cancel the whole thing. Fortunately, it’s not. It’s up to Mother, and Mother knows best. (more...)

Plato’s use of drunkenness, mainly in the Symposium but also in the Phaedrus, is a metaphor designed to defend Socrates’ philosophical inspiration. (more...)

We discuss Plato’s description of Socrates’ philosophical inspiration as “drunkenness” and/or Dionysian mania; Plato’s metaphor draws on earlier Greek poetry. (more...)

What if the Second World War had turned out differently? This article explains why counterfactuals and alternative histories can be misleading. (more...)

Why do we have a criminal justice system? What could possibly justify the state punishing its citizens? Retributivism is the view that we ought to give offenders the suffering that they deserve for harming others. (more...)

From the Garden of Eden to urban allotments, gardens have accompanied and enriched human history and culture from ancient times to now. In this article, Ian James Kidd traces the spiritual history of gardens as places of refuge from the world. (more...)

Dr Simionescu-Panait talks about his research on the phenomenology of elegance, about ‘Socratic’ approaches to philosophical counseling and about his new book on elegance: “The Reconciled Body.” (more...)

A rhetoric of slowness and speed has been used by philosophers since the ancient periods to characterise and assess different ways of life. (more...)

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

Wael B. Hallaq (وائل حلاق‎) is a leading scholar of Islamic law and Islamic intellectual history at Columbia University. In this interview, we ask his opinion on the tension between Western and Islamic conceptions of governance and human rights. (more...)

The overall aim of Descartes’ philosophy is to found science on a secure and absolutely certain footing. Without that anything built by science would be open to doubt following from the weakness of its foundation. (more...)

Luca M. Possati is researcher at the University of Porto, Portugal. Educated as philosopher, he has been lecturer at the Institut Catholique de Paris and associate researcher of the Fonds Ricoeur and EHESS (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales). (more...)

For the first time in history, an AI called DABUS has been granted a patent in South Africa. This article analyses the metaphysics of attributing inventions to non-human agents. (more...)

In a book published in 2008, R. H. Thaler and C. R. Sunstein define nudges as “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behaviour in a predictable way.” (more...)

If we are natural beings who evolved with everything else, why have we had such a hugely detrimental impact on that biosphere, which also happens to be our home? (more...)

How far does our responsibility extend? What can we rightly be regarded as responsible for? (more...)

Luis de Miranda lives in Sweden and is a philosophical practitioner, founder of the Philosophical Health movement. (more...)

I’m not gonna lie to you: when I finally received the cybermail notification that my purchase was approved and I could pick it up from the Companions ‘R’ Us warehouse in Manchester, I was literally electrified. (more...)

The rhetoric or metaphor of refuge from the world has largely disappeared from religious, social and ethical debate. The contrast with the past is striking. (more...)

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who, because of his Jewish descent, spent the last six months of World War II in a German concentration camp, which he barely survived. (more...)

Can artificial intelligence discover new laws of physics? Possibly. An article in Technology Review suggests that data from a swinging pendulum experiment allowed a neural network to discover some of the laws of motion. (more...)

We’ve heard it all our lives — size matters and bigger is better. But David Velleman wants you to believe that shape can matter more! (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...)

Why is it so difficult to make predictions about society? The problem is not the complexity of the task, but the concepts we use to think about the world. (more...)

The terminology of ‘nihilism’ and ‘the meaning of life’ emerged among a small group of German philosophers at the end of the 18th century who were worried about the French Enlightenment. (more...)

According to Psychological Hedonism, we are all just looking for fun. Psychological Hedonism is a theory about motivation. (more...)

Can two people’s experiences and outlooks on life be so different that meaningful communication between them is impossible? Recent events suggest so. (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...)

The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus emphasises that, in a world that works according to physical laws, nobody ought to be afraid of either the gods or one’s own death. (more...)

In many of Bradbury’s stories we can find an entire philosophy of life that is well worth discovering and adopting. (more...)

The last book of visionary writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), Island, is a bold attempt to envision a utopian society that provides its members with everything they need to achieve happiness in life. (more...)

The human mind is unique and we know of no other comparable phenomenon in the universe. The philosophy of mind (monism, dualism, computationalism) attempts to explain what exactly the mind is. (more...)

Aristotle’s theory of happiness rests on three concepts: (1) the virtues; (2) phronesis or practical wisdom; and (3) eudaimonia or flourishing. (more...)

Zeno of Elea (490-430 BC) is famous for his paradoxes that seem to prove, among other points, that no movement is possible. If an arrow in flight is standing still whenever we take a photograph of it, when is it actually moving? (more...)

German Romantics, much like their English counterparts, valued spontaneity and naturalness, in part as a reaction to the beginning loss of the natural world due to industrialisation and urbanisation. (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...)

Ruut Veenhoven, Dutch sociologist, distinguishes four different types of happiness: 1. objective vs subjective quality of life and 2. chances vs outcomes. (more...)