What Jürgen Habermas leaves behind
His legacy is the philosophical strength to see through our dark, illiberal age
ByPhilosophy
Michael Pollan’s hunt for consciousness
We have it. Plants have it. Machines may soon have it. Why do they all need one?
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What Gillian Rose saw in Auschwitz
Thirty years after her death, Rose’s command to look for fascism inside our selves is more powerful than ever
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Thought experiment 14: The box that can change the past
Newcomb’s Box is a paradox that divides opinion – and casts doubt on our usual understanding of cause and effect.
By Thought experiment 13: The comet that destroys the Earth after our death
If we knew human existence was soon to end, would we care about any of life’s projects and pastimes?
By Thought experiment 12: The Teletransporter
What links Star Trek’s Enterprise and the Ship of Theseus from Greek mythology? A question of continuous personal identity that…
By Thought experiment 11: The Harmless Torturer
There is a mismatch in our ideas about the individual’s responsibility to others and the way we behave in groups.…
By Thought experiment 10: The Trolley Problem
The moral dilemma that broke free of academic discourse and became a runaway meme.
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How to think in the age of AI
In a world transformed by tech, philosophy is more vital than ever.
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The West is bored to death
Our nihilistic politics are a product of the crushing ennui and spiritual vacancy of modern life.
By Thought experiment 9: Mary’s Room
The Australian philosopher Frank Jackson used the tale of a colour-deprived prodigy to argue for a world beyond the physical.…
By Thought experiment 8: The Experience Machine
In the 1970s Robert Nozick imagined immersive, tech-simulated pleasure as a negation of what it means to be human.
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David Rieff foretells the fate of woke
Rieff offers the American left a path beyond the culture war and towards a more generous, genuine humanism.
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Judith Butler Q&A: “I’d like more joy, more music, a new political regime”
The philosopher and gender theorist on Hegel, Kafka, and getting lost at the circus.
By Thought experiment 7: The Veil of Ignorance
Rawlsian social justice is the bedrock of contemporary liberalism.
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The race to God Mode
China and America’s AI battle is about more than just tech supremacy – it’s about controlling the future.
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The brutal world of the Brothers Grimm
The folklorists’ fairy tales, in which moral laws are suspended and violence abounds, were no stranger than the progressive fantasies…
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Agnes Callard: “Socrates wants us to reflect on the oddity of our sexual practices”
The public philosopher on open relationships, free speech and why protests fail.
By Thought experiment 6: Twin Earth
Different understandings of semantics expose the limitations of language.
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Notes on the ineffable
How the psychologist and philosopher William James defined “mystical” experience.
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