Dave Hangman on a crucial lawsuit taking place the day after tomorrow. “Mrs Portman, we regret to notify you that our company will not be paying the sum insured for your husband’s death,” the suited ...

Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention. The idea of a cosmic purpose is one which many of us are familiar with from religion. What happens in this world, so the story goes, is ...

Raymond Tallis wonders what the world is made from. There is a much-quoted passage near the opening of Richard Feynman’s famous Lectures on Physics (1963): “If in some cataclysm all of scientific ...

Oliver Waters asks, is retributive justice justified in a modern society? “When I woke up, I went on what the movie advertisements refer to as a ‘Roaring Rampage of Revenge’. I roared, and I rampaged, ...

Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’. What is life worth? Questioning the value of our existence has the utmost significance, but no response seems likely to fully ...

Arianna Marchetti reflects on the limits of political freedom. Freedom “is my right to have my own opinion, my own conscience. Many can perfectly live without freedom, as the freedom of having ...

David Ashton finds that the Stoic view of anger needs updating. Stoics have a well-known aversion to strong emotions, but anger seems to fill them with a particular dread. Seneca, one of the ...

Robert Stern talks with AmirAli Maleki about philosophy in general, and Kant and Hegel in particular. Robert Stern FBA (1962-2024) was a British philosopher who served as a professor of philosophy at ...

David Howard on restoring balance to an unstable world. Is it still possible for us to live a good life while avoiding climate catastrophe? How could society be organised to create the conditions for ...

‘More songs about Buildings and Food’ was the title of a 1978 album by the rock band Talking Heads. It was about all the things rock stars normally don’t sing about. Pop songs are usually about ...

Massimo Pigliucci organizes his library. Have you ever read modern technical books in philosophy? If so, you might have noticed that, broadly speaking, they fall into two categories: treatises on a ...

Shamanistic shyster or intellectual innovator, creative charlatan or exalted pioneer of philosophy – however one views him, Pythagoras remains the most famous name at the starting gate of Western ...