Soul Searching February 25, 2020 Do you think you have a soul? The modern scientific impulse is to dispense with supposedly occult or “spooky” notions like souls and spirits, and to understand ourselves instead as wholly and completely part of the natural world, existing and operating through the same physical, chemical and biological processes that we find anywhere else in the environment. Read More
Philip Freeman on Cicero, Star Wars, and the Stoic Idea of God December 13, 2019 Ancient Rome was a wildly diverse and exotic place. As I tell the students in my college classes, if you want to get a feel for what Rome was like, watch Star Wars. Read More
Will AI Become Conscious? A Conversation with Susan Schneider November 04, 2019 Consciousness is the felt quality of experience. When you see a wave cresting on a beach, smell the aroma of freshly baked bread, or feel the pain of stubbing your toe, you are having conscious experience. Read More
First time author spotlight: James Lindley Wilson on Democratic Equality October 22, 2019 Democracy establishes relationships of political equality, ones in which citizens equally share authority over what they do together and respect one another as equals. Read More
In Dialogue with Susan Mattern and Richard Bribiescas: Reframing how we think about aging October 09, 2019 Are we looking at male/female aging all wrong? Susan Mattern and Richard Bribiescas discuss. Read More
Ryan Patrick Hanley on Adam Smith October 08, 2019 Adam Smith is best known today as the founder of modern economics, but he was also an uncommonly brilliant philosopher who was especially interested in the perennial question of how to live a good life. Read More
Justin Smith on Irrationality April 08, 2019 It’s a story we can’t stop telling ourselves. Once, humans were benighted by superstition and irrationality, but then the Greeks invented reason. Later, the Enlightenment enshrined rationality as the supreme value. Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal.” Read More
Jason Brennan: When the state is unjust, citizens may use justifiable violence January 29, 2019 If you see police choking someone to death – such as Eric Garner, the 43-year-old black horticulturalist wrestled down on the streets of New York City in 2014 – you might choose to pepper-spray them and flee. You might even save an innocent life. But what ethical considerations justify such dangerous heroics? Read More
Isaiah Berlin and European Politics May 06, 2013 New editions of works by Isaiah Berlin will be rolling out this spring into next fall! Among the works that will be reprinted is one of his quintessential essays, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History. Read More
Throwback Thursday with Isaiah Berlin: The Roots of Romanticism May 02, 2013 The Roots of Romanticism was first published by Princeton in 1998. Read More
Throwback Thursday with Isaiah Berlin: The Crooked Timber of Humanity April 03, 2013 Throwback Thursday with Isaiah Berlin: The Crooked Timber of Humanity was first published by Princeton in 1998. Read More
Throwback Thursday with Isaiah Berlin: Against the Current April 01, 2013 In celebration of the new printings of works by Isaiah Berlin Read More