History
How a flawed logic of economic scarcity and social climbing spurred witch hunts in early modern Germany
Sleep and dreams
Insomnia brings many gifts — the noises of the night, the twist of narrative, and a stolen march on time
Logic and probability
Some philosophers think maths exists in a mysterious other realm. They’re wrong. Look around: you can see it
Love and friendship
A white gown, a grand reception, a multi-tiered cake – the stuff of a traditional wedding or something else entirely?
Mood and emotion
In an age thick with anger and fear, we might dream of a purely rational politics but it would be a denial of our humanity
Childhood and adolescence
Schools are in the business of forming character – so what kind of people will thrive in the 21st century?
Knowledge
Why do some people believe conspiracy theories? It’s not just who or what they know. It’s a matter of intellectual character
Comparative philosophy
A 17th-century classic of Ethiopian philosophy might be a fake. Does it matter, or is that just how philosophy works?
Rituals and celebrations
From Kentucky to Wales and all across the Atlantic, the enslaved and downtrodden got married – by leaping over a broom. Why?
Philosophy of language
Words stand for things in the world, and they stand apart from it. Perhaps meaning is more sunken into words than we realise?
Biology
This winter has seen an irruption of snowy owls in the US. What does it mean to see Arctic birds so far from home?
Teaching and learning
Children learn best when their bodies are engaged in the living world. We must resist the ideology of screen-based learning
Ethics
Why would it be so bad if our species came to an end? It is a question that reveals our latent values and hidden fears
Illness and disease
The culture around breast cancer is full of positivity and femininity. But it comes at the expense of the marginalised
Childhood and adolescence
I am an atheist, and suspicious of sugar-coated evasions. So how can I explain death to my son without fudging the truth?
The ancient world
Incentives, rewards, bonuses and bonding experiences – Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists
Psychiatry and psychotherapy
A radical therapy based on eye movements can desensitise painful memories, heal hurts and aid transformation at warp speed
Cosmopolitanism
Hannah Arendt knew how to be a pariah. Is that the key to being a 21st-century cosmopolitan?
Deep time
Was human evolution inevitable, or do we owe our existence to a once-in-a-universe stroke of luck?
Political philosophy
Marriage is what happens when the state gets involved in endorsing and regulating personal relationships. It’s a bad idea
Biology
Networks regulate everything from ant colonies and middle schools to epidemics and the internet. Here’s how they work
Religion
Master Nissho Inoue and his band of assassins teach some uncomfortable truths about terrorism, for those who will hear
Poverty and development
Thirty years after the nuclear disaster, local berry-pickers earn a good living. What’s the hidden cost of their wares?
Philosophy of religion
The modern world is disenchanted. God remains dead. But our need for transcendence lives on. How should we fulfil it?
Thinkers and theories
Scholars cannot agree whether the letters of Plato are fake or genuine. Is this just a symptom of misplaced reverence?
Logic and probability
When logic fails to make sense of a world noisy with inconsistency, paraconsistent logics hold out (im)possible solutions
History
Muslims came to America more than a century before Protestants, and in great numbers. How was their history forgotten?
Physics
Humans love laws and seek predictability. But like our Universe, which thrives on entropy, we need disorder to flourish
Childhood and adolescence
Volcanic feelings of love and hate are part of being a parent: it’s dangerous to pretend otherwise
Neuroscience
For centuries, people have navigated the globe using instruments. But what if the Earth itself can help us feel our way?
Death
With the rise of the internet has come a popular surge in people looking to be freaked out. Why?
Evolution
Organisms do not evolve blindly under forces beyond their control, but shape and influence the evolutionary environment itself
Meaning and the good life
Humanity is nothing more than a microscopic blip in the Universe. But does that mean we are insignificant?
Design and fashion
Because I’m getting older, my days as a model are numbered – and I’m not sure what to do next
Biotechnology
Unreason, like the poor, will always be with us. But why does quackery survive when science is making life better?
Stories and literature
For thousands of fans, he made philosophy thrillingly relevant. Yet there is a deep unsavoury undercurrent to his worldview
Medicine
You might think they are disgusting. But our war against intestinal worms has damaged our immune systems and mental health
Bioethics
Children born with in-between sex development are subject to surgeries that many believe violate their human rights
Values and beliefs
High priests, holy writ and excommunications – how did Humanism end up acting like a religion?
History
The veneration which surrounds the world’s last sacred kings shows how secular most of political life has become
Demography and migration
Generational thinking is seductive and confirms preconceived prejudices, but it’s a bogus way to understand the world
Illness and disease
It is time to disarm the military metaphor of the body as a battleground, with immune cells as the first line of defence
Art
As the boundaries between digital and physical dissolve, can the New Aesthetic help us see things more clearly?
Social psychology
A ragged curtain, a creaking attic, a dark cellar – what explains the architecture of creepiness, and its enduring appeal?
Teaching and learning
A child’s brain can master anything from language to music. Can neuroscience extend that genius across the lifespan?
Anthropology
Every culture looks for creative inspiration to other cultures, but is there a point when this is just outright theft?
Virtues and vices
Mischievousness requires humour, wit and a playful humaneness: qualities that make for a particular kind of virtue
Animals and humans
In a tight spot, you’d probably intuit that a human life outweighs an animal’s. There are good arguments why that’s wrong
Psychiatry and psychotherapy
In a clinical setting, playful activities are not distractions; they take patients deep into trauma – and out the other side
History of technology
Soviet scientists tried for decades to network their nation. What stalemated them is now fracturing the global internet
Neuroscience
Imagine purging life’s disturbing events. If you could alter or mute your worst memories, would you still remain yourself?
Work
Men from the Shetland Islands worked the whaling expeditions to the Antarctic. Until the whales were gone
Philosophy of science
Theoretical physicists who say the multiverse exists set a dangerous precedent: science based on zero empirical evidence
Illness and disease
HIV is preventable, yet it’s still with us. Is it time for all, gay and straight, to stop framing sex as a lethal weapon?
Education
A century ago, Weber both diagnosed the ills of the corporatised, modern university, and pointed out the path beyond it
Language and linguistics
Brain-to-brain interfaces promise to bypass language. But do we really want access to one another’s unmediated thoughts?
Death
When someone close to you dies, the very fabric of your life is ripped to shreds. Is philosophy any consolation?
Future of technology
All the great inventions took painstaking, risky, indirect routes to fruition. Has Silicon Valley really escaped history?
Space exploration
Earthbound exploration was plagued with colonialism, exploitation and extraction. Can we hope to make space any different?
Cities
Loneliness can be a shameful hunger, a shell, a dangerous landscape of shadowy figures. But it is also a gift