Philosophy

Seeking forgiveness for gluttony, sloth and other deadly sins

30 November 2024 9:00 am

The neurologist Guy Leschziner explores the medical conditions that might underlie extremes of human behaviour in a fascinating study that combines biology and psychology

Three great minds explore the enigmas of the universe

12 October 2024 9:00 am

It sounds like a Tom Stoppard play. A big-shot philosopher meets a big-shot boffin by way of a big-shot writer…

What do we mean when we talk about freedom?

12 October 2024 9:00 am

When the Yale historian and bestselling author Timothy Snyder was 14, his parents took him to Costa Rica, a country…

Is now the most exciting point in human history?

28 September 2024 9:00 am

Since today’s computers can process information beyond human capabilities, we are on a precipice never faced before, says Yuval Noah Harari, in another sweeping narrative

The troublesome idealism of Simone Weil

21 September 2024 9:00 am

Hailed as ‘an uncompromising witness to the modern travails of the spirit’ , Weil also exasperated those closest to her with her ambitions for heroic self-denial

India radiates kindly light across the East

31 August 2024 9:00 am

William Dalrymple describes how, from the 3rd century BC to 1200 AD, India illuminated the rest of Asia with its philosophies and artistic forms through unforced cultural conquest

What will we do when all our jobs are done for us?

22 June 2024 9:00 am

The philosopher Nick Bostrom speculates imaginatively about the travails of extreme leisure, but we don’t get any guru-like nuggets

Nietzsche’s thinking seems destined to be mangled and misunderstood

4 May 2024 9:00 am

Two Italian editors, determined to rescue the philosopher from Nazi associations, find their concern with philological truth derided by French postmodernists

Daniel Dennett’s last interview: ‘AI could signal the end of human civilisation’

27 April 2024 9:00 am

Do we still need philosophers? Daniel Dennett, who died last week, believed strongly that we do. ‘Scientists have a tendency…

What does Christian atheism mean?

27 April 2024 9:00 am

Slavoj Žižek claims to value Christianity’s ‘dissident’ credentials, but his atheist vision of reality rests on assumptions repeatedly challenged by Jesus

We have lost an unforgettable teacher and one of the greatest living critics

20 April 2024 9:00 am

Tanner, the critic RICHARD BRATBY Michael Tanner (1935-2024), who died earlier this month, had such a vital mind and stood…

Flaubert, snow, poverty, rhythm … the random musings of Anne Carson

17 February 2024 9:00 am

It is thrillingly difficult to keep one’s balance in Carson’s topsy-turvy world as she meditates on a wide range of subjects in poetry, pictures and prose

Is writing now changing the world for the worse?

3 February 2024 9:00 am

Humanity’s great civilising accomplishment may have slipped the leash. Computer programs and surveillance also involve ‘writing’, potentially making us decreasingly human

The problem with westerners seeking oriental enlightenment

27 January 2024 9:00 am

Those chasing after blissful satori never seem interested in the people who actually live in Asia. They want to float in higher spheres

Why were masters of the occult respected but witches burnt?

6 January 2024 9:00 am

Anthony Grafton discusses five celebrated scholars, beginning with Dr Faustus, who separated ‘good’ magic from ‘bad’ in their studies of alchemy, astrology and conjuration

Too many tales of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle

7 October 2023 9:00 am

Contemplating ‘hedgehog philosophy’ with Sarah Sands, Rowan Williams, Greta Thunberg and other luminaries would test anyone’s patience after 150 pages

What should we make of the esoteric philosophy Traditionalism?

8 July 2023 9:00 am

Depending on one’s perspective, it is either a dangerous way of thinking or one that the decadent West would do well to study, says Mark Sedgwick

Can the ancient Greeks really offer us ‘life lessons’ today?

24 June 2023 9:00 am

Adam Nicolson thinks so. But his liveliest stories are about Pythagoras, who lived in a hole in the ground, and Thales, who fell into a well while studying the night sky

The philosophical puzzles of the British Socrates

17 June 2023 9:00 am

After vital work for British intelligence during the second world war, why did J.L. Austin devote the rest of his life to considering literally asinine questions?

In search of the peripatetic philosopher Theophrastus

20 August 2022 9:00 am

Publishers lately seem to have got the idea that otherwise uncommercial subjects might be rendered sexy if presented with a…

What exactly do we mean by the mind?

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Given the ingenuity of machine-makers, said Descartes in the 17th century, machines might well be constructed that exactly resemble humans.…

The amazing grace of Bruce Lee’s fight scenes

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Early on in Enter the Dragon our hero, the acrobatic Kung Fu fighter Bruce Lee, tells a young pupil to…

Life’s great dilemma: Either/Or, by Elif Batuman, reviewed

28 May 2022 9:00 am

In this delightful sequel to her semi-autobiographical novel The Idiot (2017), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Elif…

Know your left from your right: the brain’s divided hemispheres

12 February 2022 9:00 am

The dust jacket of The Matter With Things quotes a large statement from an Oxford professor: ‘This is one of…