EP Thompson’s dystopian visions
His science fiction novel tackled two fears: atomic annihilation and AI determinism.
ByPhilosophy
Why I loved my dog
Animals have so much to teach us.
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Simone de Beauvoir and the art of loss
Sixty years ago, the French writer’s unflinching memoir of her mother’s death tested the limits of her existentialism.
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Simone Weil’s great awakening
How the French activist and thinker forged a radical new philosophy for an age of war and ideological conflict.
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Milan Kundera’s identity crisis
In renouncing his homeland and despairing of European culture, the Czech novelist walks in the footsteps of Kafka.
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Hegel against the machines
The philosopher’s ideas on intelligence have staggering implications for the future of AI.
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The plain-speaking philosophers
Nikhil Krishnan’s A Terribly Serious Adventure shows how Oxford’s “ordinary language” movement, pioneered by JL Austin and Gilbert Ryle, looked…
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The Red Christian
How Jacques Maritain, the most influential Catholic intellectual of the 20th century, changed the world.
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King Charles III’s secret kingdom
For decades, as he awaited his turn to ascend the British throne, Charles presided over another kingdom: rural Transylvania. What…
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The invention of God
David Baddiel’s new book argues that a deity that saves us from death is confected from human desire.
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Derek Parfit: the perfectionist at All Souls
Brilliant and eccentric, the Oxford philosopher spent his career grappling with fundamental moral questions.
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Who is afraid of Martin Heidegger?
Why the most radioactive philosopher of the 20th century still speaks to us.
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The aspirations of Agnes Callard
Her philosophy of marriage is an ethical dead end.
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I Want My Hat Back is a bleak masterpiece that explains the human condition
Jon Klassen’s picture book about a bear, a rabbit and a hat contains moments of profound revelation.
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Multi-Dimensional Man
Herbert Marcuse was the philosopher of the future in an age without one.
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Only philosophy can beat AI
No computer can be programmed to question its own moral code.
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At MoMa, I saw an artwork that moved me – made by a machine
Refik Anadol’s Unsupervised is a glorious introduction to art by artificial intelligence. Plus: the rise of cultural Russophobia.
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The poetic history of David Graeber
The posthumous publication of Pirate Enlightenment shows how the anarchist, like any true intellectual, never grew out of his childhood…
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Nietzsche, narwhals and the burden of consciousness
Justin Gregg’s witty exploration of animal intelligence is a useful guide – but there is more to human life than…
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Elon Musk’s useful philosopher
Silicon Valley billionaires have taken up the ideas of William MacAskill, the leading voice of longtermism. But they will not…
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