Anja Steinbauer introduces the life and ideas of Immanuel Kant, the merry sage of Königsberg, who died 200 years ago. “Have the courage to use your own reason!”, (in Latin sapere aude!) is the battle ...

In his Introduction to Lectures on the Philosophy of World History (1837), Hegel argues that there are three ways of doing history. The first of these is original history. Original history refers to ...

Shakespeare never met Wittgenstein, Russell, or Ryle, and one wonders what a conversation between them would have been like. “What’s in a name, you ask?” Wittgenstein might answer “A riddle of symbols ...

John Kennedy Philip goes deep into the search for (post-) human heights. Throughout our history, we human beings have been trying to transform ourselves with a view of overcoming our limitations, even ...

The following answers to this central philosophical question each win a random book. Sorry if your answer doesn’t appear: we received enough to fill twelve pages… Why are we here? Do we serve a ...

Duane Cady tells us why pacifism isn’t sitting back and letting the masters of war have their way. Pacifism rarely gets taken seriously due to a widespread cultural bias: ‘everybody knows’ that ...

Each answer below receives a book. Apologies to the entrants not included. One of the most fundamental questions of anthropology is that of personhood. We might also consider it the starting point for ...

Charlotte Moore freely subjects de Beauvoir’s ethics to a discerning scrutiny. In her 1947 book The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir outlines an existentialist ethics. She was inspired by ...

Raymond Tallis dreams up a flight of philosophical fancy. The story of Zhuangzi and the butterfly must be one of the best known anecdotes in the philosophical literature. It is also, for me at any ...

Daniel Kaufman sees philosophy ailing as a guide for Western culture, and considers how it might be revived. Among the humanities, philosophy is particularly dependent on its place in the Academy.

Ian James Kidd takes a look at humanity through dark glasses. The condemnation of humankind is very topical these days. Given the global environmental crisis, the rise of far-right ideologies, ...

Paul O’Mahoney considers the awful fate Nietzsche predicts for humanity. Scattered through Nietzsche’s writings are proclamations of his ‘untimeliness’, expressing the conviction that he will be ‘born ...