I once exalted in the extraordinary. But as I’ve learned from Virginia Woolf, indelible beauty is also found in the everyday - by Diana Saverin Read at Aeon | Continue reading
With a class of college students and inmates, teaching philosophy in prison is a rowdy, honest and hopeful provocation - by Jay Miller Read at Aeon | Continue reading
A hero or a murderer? Stalin’s legacy is still a contentious issue in his birthplace, seven decades after his death - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Doodles are the emanations of our pixillated minds, freewheeling into dissociation, graphology, and radical openness - by James Reath Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Ascend steep cliffs to discover Ethiopia’s ancient churches carved into rock, still serving as places of worship today - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
For Iris Murdoch, morality is not about duties and rules but stopping our ego fantasies and attending to others with love - by Cathy Mason Read at Aeon | Continue reading
In this layered portrait, an artist reflects on the complex reality of living with the distressing voice in her head - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
At the heart of surfing, whether you’re a kook or a famous charger, is the pursuit of moments so pure they clean you out - by M M Owen Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Many hope that AI will discover ethical truths. But as Gödel shows, deciding what is right will always be our burden - by Elad Uzan Read at Aeon | Continue reading
In the face of government denial, this powerful film reveals the devastating gendered violence of Indonesia’s 1998 riots - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Life is often experienced as a demanding, ongoing story. But with a little practice, a new space opens for peaceful presence - by James Carmody Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Should it be possible to own an idea? The debate around intellectual property has deep roots in the history of philosophy - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Societal downfalls loom large in history and popular culture but, for the 99 per cent, collapse often had its upsides - by Luke Kemp Read at Aeon | Continue reading
The little-known painter who found beauty in bugs, transforming pests into wondrous creatures and works of art - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Throughout the animal kingdom, the parents of newborns must strive to create snug sanctuaries in a hazardous world - by Helen Jukes Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Growing up in countercultural California, ‘enlightenment’ had real glamour. But decades of practice have changed my mind - by Anshi Zachary Smith Read at Aeon | Continue reading
How do you say goodbye to a beloved dog who will never understand what that means? A meditation on the limits of language - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Alex Haley co-wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X but Haley left out some profound elements of Malcolm’s political thought - by Alex White Read at Aeon | Continue reading
The systems that make people unfree are deeply intertwined. This prison abolitionist dares to envision real alternatives - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
We need new forms of global diplomacy to transcend the current pathetic bargaining of national and commercial interests - by David Van Reybrouck Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Dissonance and harmony might seem straightforward, but a deep dive into the physics reveals their delightful complexity - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Life is complicated. In Cameroon, initiated diviners read the messages of spiders to untangle possible futures - by David Zeitlyn Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Nietzsche shows us how to embrace our connection with nature – without denying its essential conflict, strife and suffering - by Nicholas E Low Read at Aeon | Continue reading
People who’ve lost an intimate partner often feel completely alone in their experience – Camp Widow helps them connect - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
What is the shape of the Universe? The answer might be found in the most unassuming places here on Earth - by Mark Neyrinck Read at Aeon | Continue reading
It’s so toxic, curators can’t handle it without gloves – but drinking wine from this cup was once a popular wellness trend - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Any legal system that fails to compensate people for epistemic harm is unjust. Their damage must be named and remedied - by Mitch Woolery Read at Aeon | Continue reading
What does it mean to be Mexican? Meet the artist who forged Mexico’s identity in the brushstrokes of his landscape paintings - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Interpreting the emotional lives of animals requires a subtler and more nuanced understanding of anthropomorphism - by Mike Dacey Read at Aeon | Continue reading
To truly explore alien languages, linguists must open themselves to the maximum conceivable degree of cosmic otherness - by Eli K P William Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Can a Tibetan singer make the leap from the slow pace of life on the Tibetan plateau to the fast rhythms of urban Beijing? - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Is consciousness like jazz, something hard to pin down? Or is it more like the biology of dolphins, odd but natural? - by Tim Bayne Read at Aeon | Continue reading
What’s so golden about the golden ratio? A myth-busting investigation tells the story of a misunderstood mathematical idea - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Saying the word ‘cancer’ changes a person’s life and can lead to overtreatment and fear. Is the word too hot to use at all? - by Benjamin Chin-Yee Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Photos and journal entrees chronicle Michael C Rockefeller’s fateful 1961 journey to New Guinea in search of local art - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
In the 1930s, the rise of Nazism brought centuries of animosity between Europe’s Catholics and Protestants to an end. Why? - by Udi Greenberg Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Certain slime moulds can make decisions, solve mazes and remember things. What can we learn from the blob? - by Matthew Sims Read at Aeon | Continue reading
For centuries, time-measuring tools were woefully imprecise. Moving from the Sun to water birthed a revolution in timekeeping - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Death is a certainty. But choosing how and when we depart is a modest opportunity for freedom – and dignity - by Michael Cholbi Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Solitary inmates find calm in nature videos in an experiment reflecting the human need to connect with the natural world - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
René Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, was furiously condemned by his contemporaries. Why did they fear him? - by Sandrine Parageau Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Can societies exist without families? Can individuality thrive in them? Margaret Mead on the brave new world of 1959 - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Architectural copies of lost structures require reckoning with history and heritage. At what cost is the past rebuilt? - by Elizabeth Kostina Read at Aeon | Continue reading
‘Everything becomes crab’ is more than an absurd meme. The crab is a deep symbol of our devil’s bargain with technology - by Michael Garfield Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Cinematic shots of Californian farmland frame the stories of its immigrant workers, who live between precarity and hope - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
How the ideas circulating among one noblewoman’s coterie in 16th-century Dubrovnik anticipated modern feminist thought - by Luka Boršić Read at Aeon | Continue reading
A cherished local tradition keeps memories of the departed alight in this tiny village on England’s southwest coast - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
The diagnostic category of adult ADHD is becoming more inclusive. That’s not the same as it being overdiagnosed - by Margaret Sibley Read at Aeon | Continue reading