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December 10, 2022
Michael Hauskeller

The Ballad of Marie and Elsie

A poem by Professor Michael Hauskeller. (more...)
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October 2, 2022

October 2: Happy Birthday, Mahatma Gandhi!

Last Friday was the birthday of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, whom they called the Mahatma, the Great Soul. (more...)
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July 20, 2022

Five Most Inspiring Philosophy Books

Life-changing wisdom for your summer reading list
Looking for a life-changing summer read? Here are Daily Philosophy’s recommendations for five of the most inspiring books that everyone should know. (more...)
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John Shand

The Empathy Paradox

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...)
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Taking the Crowded Bus of Life

Epictetus on the Stoic attitude
The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus (50-135 AD), one of the most important Stoic philosophers in history, recommends seeing obstacles in our lives as opportunities to improve. (more...)
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John Shand

Meaning, Value, Death, and God

What makes our death bearable? How do we create meaning from the certainty of our own deaths? Prof. John Shand analyses the question. (more...)
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Five More Inspiring Philosophy Books for Your Christmas

Our big Christmas gifts guide, part 2
Daily Philosophy’s recommendations for five more of the most inspiring books for your Christmas presents list. The best from Jill Taylor, John Stevens, Bill Porter, Eugen Herrigel and Aldous Huxley. With tips on whom to gift each book. (more...)
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The Stoic View of the Self

Being in someone else’s shoes
For the Stoics, everything that happens to us seems to have a special significance that the same event wouldn’t have if it happened to someone else. (more...)
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David E. Cooper

Nanavira Thera

The Hermit of Bundala
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...)
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Stoic Control

How to stay calm in everyday life
At the core of the Stoic theory of happiness is our ability to control our thoughts. The wise man should try to exercise control over what they can control and not try to control what they cannot. (more...)
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Solitude and Contentment

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

Following one’s own way
We visit three very different hermits: Agafia Lykova in remote Siberia, Mauro Morandi on a Mediterranean island paradise, and Lincolnshire nun Rachel Denton. What unites them and gives their lives meaning? (more...)
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Robert Rodriguez: The Book of Hermits

Book review
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...)
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Ian James Kidd

Going Slow

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

Huts, Homelessness and Heimat

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

The adventures of Tom Neale (1902-1977)
Tom Neale spent a total of fourteen years alone on a little island in the Suwarrow Atoll in the South Pacific, where he found peace and happiness in solitude. We have a look at this extraordinary life. (more...)
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One Hundred Days in a Hermit’s Hut

Jane Dobisz on living alone in the woods
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...)
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Hermits and Happiness

The long tradition of leaving it all behind
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...)
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Does Gratefulness Work?

The science behind gratitude diaries
Gratefulness has been proposed as a way to increase one’s happiness in life. But does it work? We look at the science of gratitude diaries to find out whether gratefulness has a positive effect on happiness. (more...)
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Does Gratefulness Make Happy?

Brother David-Steindl-Rast on gratefulness
Brother David-Steindl-Rast is one of the most prominent advocates of gratefulness as a way of life. In his famous TED talk, he explains how gratefulness and attention lead to a happier life. (more...)
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David E. Cooper

The Rhetoric of Refuge

On the wish to retreat from the world
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...)
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Living Epicurus Today

What is a 21st century Epicurean?
So has Epicurean living become so expensive today as to exclude most of us from practising it? Does one need to be rich in order to be able to afford the simple life? (more...)
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Michael Hauskeller

Happy in a Concentration Camp?

It's possible, says Viktor E. Frankl
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...)
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Stephanie Mills: Epicurean Simplicity

Is a simple life the key to happiness?
In her book “Epicurean Simplicity,” author and activist Stephanie Mills analyses what is wrong with our modern way of life. (more...)
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Kant’s Praiseworthy Motivation

Ethical behaviour can be demanding
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...)
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James Tartaglia

Are You A Nihilist?

A Defence of Nihilism
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...)
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Michael Hauskeller

The Real Happiness Machine

Ray Bradbury on living and dying well
In many of Bradbury’s stories we can find an entire philosophy of life that is well worth discovering and adopting. (more...)
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Erich Fromm’s New Society

Can we build a better world?
Philosopher and social psychologist Erich Fromm analysed the problems of Western, capitalist societies. We look at his ideas for the perfect society. (more...)
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Erich Fromm: How to Become a Loving Person

What keeps us from finding happiness in love?
Philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm believes that the main source of pain and anxiety for human beings comes from the feeling of separateness from others. (more...)
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How Much Money Do We Need?

The long tradition of finding joy outside of consumerism
From Diogenes and Epicurus to Erich Fromm there is a long tradition suggesting that we might be happier with fewer material goods. (more...)
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Decluttering the Mind

Erich Fromm on material possessions
If we want to declutter, we must, according to Erich Fromm, first change our relationship to the world. (more...)
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To Have Or to Be

Erich Fromm on two different ways of living one’s life
Erich Fromm distinguishes between two modes of existence. One can live one’s life in the “mode of having” or in the “mode of being”. (more...)
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Erich Fromm on Our Relation to Technology

Rediscovering ancient skills in everyday life
According to Erich Fromm, modern technology is to be blamed for constant surveillance, destruction of the planet, and widespread AI-caused unemployment. (more...)
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Richard Taylor on the Creative Life

Real creativity is not only in art
Richard Taylor (1919–2003) thought that it’s creativity that makes us feel happy and fulfilled. According to Taylor, a life lived without exercising one’s creativity is a wasted life. (more...)
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Erich Fromm on the Psychology of Capitalism

Our world is turning us into mass products. We should resist
Erich Fromm points out that capitalism, in order to work, requires a large population of identical consumers with identical taste. (more...)
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One Year, Six Ways: A Philosophical Experiment

Daily Philosophy has an idea for this year’s resolution: live your life like a philosopher. Come along to the One Year, Six Ways project! (more...)
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Aristotle on being human

What is the function of human beings?
For Aristotle, happiness is connected to function. Everything in the universe has a function, and a happy human life is one in which we fulfil that function. (more...)
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Novalis and the Romantic View of the World

From the Romantics to modern science
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...)
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Human Dignity and Freedom

Why restaurant menus may be destroying humanity
Erich Fromm and Richard Taylor on the perils of capitalism. (more...)
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Hannah Arendt on work and being human

Labour, work and action
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) distinguishes three types of work; Labor, work, and action. (more...)
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Peter Singer's Drowning Child

Are we required to save lives if we can?
Peter Singer’s Drowning Child thought experiment: If, on the way to the office, we saw a child drowning in a pond, would we think that we have to save it? (more...)
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Erich Fromm on Being Productive

Are we active, or just busy?
For Erich Fromm, true activity means to fully use one’s talents in order to grow as a person. The mere display of business is not a sign of productive work. (more...)
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St Augustine on the Function and Pleasure of Sex

The real cost of pure pleasure
For St Augustine, the pleasure inherent in any activity is good as long as the activity is performed because of its intended function. (more...)
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Confucius on Loyalty and Betrayal

Would you send your father to prison?
For Confucius, one’s personal loyalties to family, friends, co-workers and superiors are more important than the rules of some abstract ethical theory. (more...)
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Aristotle and the Roots of Deep Ecology

Modern ecological ethics reaches back to Aristotle and his idea that the flourishing of any one thing is dependent on the flourishing of everything else. (more...)
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Life Is a Skill

Aristotle's Eudaimonia
Aristotle on living a life well through exercising one’s virtues. (more...)
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Aristotle on moral development

The three types of human beings
For Aristotle, the moral development of a person progresses in three stages: from akrates, to enkrates, to sophron or wise person. (more...)
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Love is All Around

Eryximachos’ views in Plato’s Symposion
In Plato’s Symposion, the doctor Eryximachos says that love is the harmony of opposites. This resonates with beliefs in the traditional medicine of many cultures, as well as with our concept of a “balanced” person. (more...)
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Can love be forever?

In Plato’s Symposium, Plato defines love as the desire for the eternal possession of the good. (more...)
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August 22: Happy Birthday, Geneva Conventions and Ray Bradbury!

If the Geneva Conventions didn’t exist, Ray Bradbury might have invented them.
August 22 marks the birthday of both the first Geneva Convention (1864) and science fiction writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) (more...)

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Podcast Episodes [all]

  • 031. Free Speech and Twitter
  • 030. Is Watching True Crime Immoral?
  • 029. Deep and Balanced Virtues - Lunchtime Thoughts
  • 028. Can We Control Our Emotions? - Lunchtime Thoughts
  • 027. Abolishing Work
[All Episodes]

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