Noson Yanofsky tells us how to deal with contradictions and the limitations of reason that arise from them. We all have conflicting desires. We want to get promoted, but don’t want to work too hard.

Dr E. R. Klein says we should reconsider the value of space exploration and start getting ready to leave the nest. Everyone is familiar with the giant stone heads of Easter Island, a tiny and remote ...

Roger Caldwell responds to an analysis of Nietzsche’s morality. For many, Nietzsche and morality make an unlikely conjunction. Certainly, for all his challenging views – or perhaps because they proved ...

Gisle Tangenes describes the life and ideas of a cheerfully pessimistic, mountain-climbing Norwegian existentialist. “This world,” mused Horace Walpole, “is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to ...

And how does language work anyway? Antony Tomlinson weighs the arguments. Languages seem an important feature of our lives. The languages we speak determine who we can communicate with, where we can ...

Laura Purdy considers some of the problems associated with animal organ transfer. In January 2003, U.S. scientist Randall Prather announced that he had successfully cloned a miniature pig lacking the ...

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein links Stoicism and Hip Hop. In principle, to be cool means to remain calm even under stress. But this doesn’t explain why there is now a global culture of cool. What is cool, ...

Stephen Leach considers what Bertrand Russell thought about common sense & reality – and how the one does not necessarily show you the other. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) believed that reality is ...

Questions by J.L.H. Thomas. Here is your opportunity to display your encyclopaedic knowledge of the private lives and works of the great philosophers. This is the first ever Philosophy Now quiz. It is ...

Katie Javanaud asks whether there is a contradiction at the heart of Buddhism. Two of the most fundamental doctrines of Buddhism are firstly that the self is illusory, and secondly that we can achieve ...

Mark Conard reveals the metaphysical truths lurking under the rug in Tarantino’s cult classic. Nihilism is a term which describes the loss of value and meaning in people’s lives. When Nietzsche ...

Chris Wright ponders Plato’s masterplan. One of the purposes of Plato’s Republic is to put forth a conception of the ‘just state’. Plato describes how such a state would be organized, who would govern ...