“One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag lamented in her diary. “Oh comforting solitude, how favorable thou art to original thought!” the founding father of neuroscience [...]
"We cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate people, responsible people, connected people, reflective people without some losing and leaving and [...]
“Night, when words fade and things come alive,” Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in his love letter to the hours of darkness, composed while flying alone over the [...]
That one mind can reach out from its lonely cave of bone and touch another, express its joys and sorrows to another — this is the great miracle of being alive together. The object of human [...]
In 1935, a bad trip triggered Jean-Paul Sartre’s deep-rooted fear of sea creatures. Suddenly, he found himself surrounded by crabs and lobsters. When the drug wore out, the crustaceans stayed. [...]
The mind-body problem concerns the relationship between the mind (often
associated with consciousness and subjective experience) and the body
(often identified with the physical brain). Two major [...]
Catherine Greene is a Research Associate at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics. Her research interests are the philosophy of finance and social [...]
Hermann Hesse’s Glass Bead Game contains multiple references to Chinese philosophy and religion. In this instalment in our series on Hesse’s book, we unpack the orientalist motives in his [...]
The philosophy of religion is a wide and varied field of study that is different from both theology and the history of religions. It touches metaphysics, epistemology, logic and many other areas of [...]
Published on November 16, 2023 8:00 PM GMTYou know it must be out there, but you mostly never see it.Author's Note 1: In something like 75% of possible futures, this will be the last essay that I [...]
Published on November 4, 2023 8:08 PM GMTRecently, I have been learning about industry norms, legal discovery proceedings, and incentive structures related to companies building risky systems. I [...]
Published on November 8, 2023 7:40 AM GMTI.I'm sure Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality taught me some of the obvious, overt things it set out to teach. Looking back on it a decade after I [...]
Published on November 10, 2023 5:28 AM GMTIntroductionHow many years will pass before transformative AI is built? Three people who have thought about this question a lot are Ajeya Cotra from Open [...]
Published on November 3, 2023 9:13 PM GMT(You can sign up here if you haven't already.)This is the first of my analyses of the deception chess games. The introduction will describe the setup of the [...]
Listeners from all walks of life tune in to hear Dr. Kaku discuss today's hottest and most relevant scientific/cultural topics covering everything from black holes and parallel universes to hip, provocative discussions on #philosophy and the latest #tech. #podcast#radio#science
Before Kendi’s brand of anti-racism fades into the history books, we should remember why it became popular in the first place. Kendi gave us the professional-class solution to inequality: [...]
Contemporary film criticism increasingly takes the form of a ceaseless hunt for hidden messages in movies. In addition to producing outlandish interpretations, it is also confusing the role of art in [...]
The Tennessee Valley Authority was about more than electrification. It was a complex project of building state and public planning capacity geared toward rapid ecological restoration of the entire [...]
Previously, I have considered, through Marx’s concept of the value form, the mutually exclusive positions of workers and capitalists in capitalist society, their oscillations between, likewise, two [...]
My title is a quote from Thomas G. Bever’s “The Cognitive Basis for Linguistic Structures” (346) and reflects a tantalizing uncertainty manifested dramatically at the core of this discipline by [...]
“If I wanted to, I could also formulate syllogisms to respond to your sophistic reasoning, and better syllogisms than yours. But I reject such methods of argumentation and obtain my evidence [...]
One of the more interesting relations to ponder on philosophically is the one between thought and perception. Perception, taken as the field of what can be perceived, actually or potentially, [...]
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emile Zola's greatest literary success, his thirteenth novel in a series exploring the extended Rougon-Macquart family. The relative here is Etienne Lantier, already [...]
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the anchoress and mystic who, in the late fourteenth century, wrote about her visions of Christ suffering, in a work since known as Revelations of Divine Love. She is [...]
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay's essays written in 1787/8 in support of the new US Constitution. They published these anonymously in New York as [...]
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the tiny drifting organisms in the oceans that sustain the food chain for all the lifeforms in the water and so for the billions of people who, in turn, depend on the [...]
In an extended version of the programme that was broadcast, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential book John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1919 after he resigned in protest from his role at the [...]
Today we've got political science Professor Neil Kraus on to talk about his book The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement. We discuss how all the promises [...]
Today we are speaking with Astra Taylor about her book The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart. Subscribe now to hear the whole thing!
Today after a brief update on the Gaza situation, we are talking about the new dark horse House speaker, and the end of democratic government in North Carolina. Enjoy!
We are continuing our Gaza discussion with writer and organizer Layla Al-Sheikh. Subscribe to listen to the whole thing!
Check out Layla's article in Dissent and Jacobin, and you can find the [...]
We launched The Raven two years ago to revive a literary form of philosophical writing that, we felt, had fallen out of favor in academic publications due to the professionalization of the field. We [...]
The pioneer of the modern memoir, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, was a philosopher, and in the 250 years since his Confessions dropped, several other philosophers have followed his lead. Friedrich Nietzsche, [...]
Editors’ Note: This essay was written, edited, and prepared for publication before the October 7th attack on Israel. The decision to proceed with publication of it should not be interpreted as [...]
Lockdown arrived in a fidget of activity. I spent the day before helping in my daughters’ school, hoping to feel of use. The teachers were busy photocopying worksheets, trying to figure out what [...]
Are you a real fan of your favorite sports team? A true fan? If you haven’t heard what it takes to be a real fan, well, then I have some exciting news: there are guidelines! Bill Simmons sets out [...]
We ask the big questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on #science, #philosophy, #society and the #art. #culture#magazine
Why is there something instead of nothing? For Henri Bergson, this misguided question leads traditional metaphysics astray - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon
Ethical values can be both objective and knowable – torture really is wrong – yet not need any foundation outside themselves - by Andrew Sepielli Read at Aeon
It’s not in the interests of the ordinary person but it’s not a conspiracy either. A cashless society is a system run amok - by Brett Scott Read at Aeon
In this video we explore the phenomenon of quantum change, which is personality change that occurs in a rapid and dramatic fashion.
The post Is Rapid Personality Transformation Possible? – The [...]
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“…more people look for salvation through relationship than in houses of worship. One may even suggest that romantic love has replaced institutional religion as the greatest motive power and [...]
“Over half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia [in the 20th [...]
In this video we explore the profound influence of role models, and how imitation promotes self-transformation.
The post The Power of Role Models – How Imitation Promotes Self-Transformation first [...]
