Interview Democracy’s dilemmas: Ewa Atanassow in conversation with Schuyler Curriden November 15, 2022 How can today’s liberal democracies withstand the illiberal wave sweeping the globe? What can revive our waning faith in constitutional democracy? Read More
Essay Gurus of degrowth: Say hello to the ancient Cynics November 03, 2022 Mark Twain once quipped “Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.” Read More
Podcast How to Say No November 01, 2022 The Cynics were ancient Greek philosophers who stood athwart the flood of society’s material excess, unexamined conventions, and even norms of politeness and thundered “No!” Diogenes, the most famous Cynic, wasn’t shy about literally extending his middle finger to the world, expressing mock surprise that “most people go crazy over a finger.” Read More
Essay On consolation, grief, and coping, and heaven October 24, 2022 Psychotherapy is not a recent invention. Thousands of years before Freud, Greek thinkers had discovered the seemingly magical effects that words can have to soothe the mind. Read More
Reading List A student’s guide to a good-enough year August 18, 2022 As schools begin to stabilize from COVID-19 disruptions, the pressures that have long been accumulating on students show no signs of slowing. Employment uncertainties, rising financial burdens, and unrelenting competition have layered on top of decades of cultural messaging to persevere doggedly and push oneself beyond the limits to achieve excellence. Read More
Essay A new way of life July 06, 2022 Every day billions of people devote a significant amount of time to worshiping an imaginary being. More precisely, they praise, exalt, and pray to the God of the major Abrahamic religions. They put their hopes in—and they fear—a transcendent, supernatural deity that, they believe, created the world and now exercises providence over it. Read More
Podcast When Animals Dream June 20, 2022 Are humans the only dreamers on Earth? What goes on in the minds of animals when they sleep? When Animals Dream brings together behavioral and neuroscientific research on animal sleep with philosophical theories of dreaming. Read More
Essay Aristotle on how to write a story May 18, 2022 Back when I was a first-year college student and thought I knew everything already, I remember my English composition professor telling us that Aristotle’s Poetics contained everything we needed to know about becoming great writers. Read More
Essay Why some mistaken views catch on May 18, 2022 As I was walking back from university one day, a respectable-looking middle-aged man accosted me. He spun a good story: he was a doctor working in the local hospital, he had to rush to some urgent doctorly thing, but he’d lost his wallet, and he had no money for a cab ride. Read More
Essay Goodbye, Europe May 12, 2022 Depending on how you look at it, the timing was either fortunate or ill-fated. The Fifth International Congress for the Unity of Science met at Harvard from 3–9 September 1939. Read More
Essay Why tech innovation alone isn’t good enough April 20, 2022 The list of crises we face today seems to grow daily. As if inequality and civil wars and global warming and refugee crises weren't enough, we have also grappled with a global pandemic and the sudden threat of nuclear war. Read More
Interview Zeynep Pamuk on Politics and Expertise January 31, 2022 Our ability to act on some of the most pressing issues of our time, from pandemics and climate change to artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons, depends on knowledge provided by scientists and other experts. Read More
Podcast Grief: A Philosophical Guide January 28, 2022 Experiencing grief at the death of a person we love or who matters to us—as universal as it is painful—is central to the human condition. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have rarely examined grief in any depth. Read More
Essay The pandemic has flooded the world with grief, but we’re not in a ‘grief pandemic’ January 21, 2022 In a span of less than two years, Covid-19 infections have killed 4.5 million people worldwide. Experts estimate that each person who dies is significantly grieved by nine others. Read More
Podcast Listen in: Rescuing Socrates January 19, 2022 What is the value of a liberal education? Traditionally characterized by a rigorous engagement with the classics of Western thought and literature, this approach to education is all but extinct in American universities, replaced by flexible distribution requirements and ever-narrower academic specialization. Read More
