Chris Wright ponders Plato’s masterplan. One of the purposes of Plato’s Republic is to put forth a conception of the ‘just state’. Plato describes how such a state would be organized, who would govern ...

Emrys Westacott asks a probing question. Imagine that right after briefing Adam about which fruit was allowed and which forbidden, God had installed a closed-circuit television camera in the garden of ...

Ellen Grabiner ponders the bearable lightness of being a Pinhead. In the recently-surfaced spate of anthologies, books, and magazine articles which have spotlighted the phenomenon of the superhero, ...

Laura Weed takes us on a tour of the mind/brain controversy. In the twentieth century philosophy of mind became one of the central areas of philosophy in the English-speaking world, and so it remains.

Les Reid sees through a lens darkly with Mark Conard. Film noir represents a dark night of the soul in American cinema. In the 1920s and 30s the most popular genre was the Western, with its tales of ...

Nathan Radke claims that Charlie Brown is an existentialist. Our anti-hero sits, despondent. He is alone, both physically and emotionally. He is alienated from his peers. He is fearfully awaiting a ...

The first example Gettier comes up with has to do with Jones and Smith applying for a job. If Smith had strong evidence that Jones will get the job (for example if the boss said Jones will get the job ...

Gisle Tangenes describes the life and ideas of a cheerfully pessimistic, mountain-climbing Norwegian existentialist. “This world,” mused Horace Walpole, “is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to ...

David White contemplates a life of sex and sermons. Those who know his name at all associate John Humphrey Noyes (1811-86) with the Oneida Community, an experiment in communal living in the tradition ...

Van Harvey reflects on Huxley’s and Clifford’s reasons for not believing. In the struggle against obscurantism and the appeal to blind faith that was rampant in Victorian culture, it would be ...

William Rowe is a professor of philosophy at Purdue University. Though an atheist, he spends much of his working life thinking about God. Nick Trakakis recently chatted with him about God and evil and ...

The first English version of a classic essay by Peter Wessel Zapffe, originally published in Janus #9, 1933. Translated from the Norwegian by Gisle R. Tangenes. One night in long bygone times, man ...