The following answers to this artful question each win a random book. Art is something we do, a verb. Art is an expression of our thoughts, emotions, intuitions, and desires, but it is even more ...

Massimo Pigliucci surveys the views of ancient schools. As we all know, the telos of life is eudaimonia. Or to use English, the goal of life is happiness. This immediately leads to two crucial ...

Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, lawyer and theologian, is well-known in Iran for bringing religion closer to the people, AmirAli Maleki asks him about Islam and philosophy. What is Islamic philosophy? What ...

Vikas Beniwal considers some philosophers’ core understandings. When someone asks ‘Who are you?’, it’s tempting to respond with labels, like ‘Asian’, ‘male’, ‘vegetarian’, or ‘student’. These tags are ...

James R. Robinson asks, how do they relate, and how do they differ? ‘Empathy’ and ‘sympathy’ are often used interchangeably, because they are related terms. However, they differ in some important ways ...

Nigel Rapport steps towards a cosmopolitan love. “We are all human and should treat each other decently and with respect”, Ernest Gellner counselled: “Don’t take more specific classifications [eg ...

Vikky Leaney says pain is a problem even (or especially) when we can’t see it. Pain is one of the most paradoxical aspects of human experience: deeply personal, yet profoundly elusive; intangible, yet ...

‘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 ...

Ross Naidoo looks at Indigenous thinking through a philosophical lens. The Indigenous or Aboriginal peoples of Australia speak several hundred distinct languages, distributed across a vast continent.

Buddhists paint vivid depictions of different forms of life: hungry ghosts at the peripheries of our world, or subterranean hell dwellers, for example. Such portrayals challenge modern sensibilities, ...

John Creigan considers whether hope helps us thrive or holds us back. Hope is often celebrated as one of humanity’s greatest virtues – a force that sustains us through adversity by fuelling dreams of ...

Colin Stott contemplates Macmurray’s reunifying thinking. John Macmurray (1891-1976) was a widely respected Scottish philosopher who gained a certain notoriety for his attacks on the philosophical ...