Eva Cybulska dispells popular misconceptions about this controversial figure. “Man is a rope, fastened between animal and Übermensch – a rope over an abyss.” For Nietzsche, the idea of Übermensch was ...

Massimo Pigliucci takes the philosophy pill. Is there a cure for life? This question may seem rather bizarre, as we don’t normally think of life as a disease. And yet, a moment’s reflection reminds us ...

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 ...

Chad Trainer seeks out the causes of the birth of Western philosophy. Enthusiasts of ancient Greek culture are frequently under the impression that Greek philosophy and mythology are closely linked.

Christopher Macann explains the basis of his ‘genetic’ system of phenomenology. In Raphael’s painting The School of Athens, we see an elderly Plato pointing upward and a middle-aged Aristotle standing ...

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 ...

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 ...

“…my first observation… will be found very nearly true; that the sublime is an idea belonging to selfpreservation. That it is therefore one of the most ...

Ralph Blumenau on why things may not be what they seem to be. Before Kant, philosophers had divided propositions into two kinds, under the technical names of ‘analytic’ and ‘synthetic’. Propositions ...

Terri Murray tells us about a Hollywood hero beyond good and evil. If Hollywood genre movies can be depended upon to deliver one thing, it is a good hero pitted against an evil foe. Simplistic though ...

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 ...