How useful is a career in philosophy? As useful – and hard – as engineering, technology or science, but only if done right | Continue reading
The standardisation and accuracy of human timekeeping has improved by leaps and bounds over the millennia – from tracing the stars, to the invention of timepieces, to the atomic ‘clocks’ of today. But for all our efforts, the concept of time, including whether it’s little more th … | Continue reading
Trainers working with dogs every day have documented extraordinary talents and skills. Will science ever catch up? | Continue reading
Protestantism didn’t hold back science – it revolutionised its methods, its theoretical content and its social significance | Continue reading
The standardisation and accuracy of human timekeeping has improved by leaps and bounds over the millennia – from tracing the stars, to the invention of timepieces, to the atomic ‘clocks’ of today. But for all our efforts, the concept of time, including whether it’s little more th … | Continue reading
How useful is a career in philosophy? As useful – and hard – as engineering, technology or science, but only if done right | Continue reading
Learning a new language is like an illicit love affair: the mother tongue is cast aside as you fly off into another’s arms | Continue reading
Romantic expectations are often ridiculous and unhelpful, but attachment science can guide us to real and lasting love | Continue reading
John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ exploded a discipline. But his greatest legacy might be a quieter project of re-enchantment | Continue reading
'The noose that had hung his friends after the war for what they had done, the noose that he thought he had escaped, had found him.'In the wake of the Second World War, former SS officials and Nazi collaborators fled Europe, hoping to evade prosecution and knowing that South Amer … | Continue reading
Romantic expectations are often ridiculous and unhelpful, but attachment science can guide us to real and lasting love | Continue reading
Meritocracy emphasises the power of the individual to overcome obstacles, but the real story is quite a different one | Continue reading
Learning a new language is like an illicit love affair: the mother tongue is cast aside as you fly off into another’s arms | Continue reading
Meritocracy emphasises the power of the individual to overcome obstacles, but the real story is quite a different one | Continue reading
Agateware is a distinctive style of ceramics that became popular in England during the 18th century. Crafting it calls for an intricate process of moulding and layering clay materials, culminating in a marbleised, multicoloured glow on each piece after glaze firing. In this short … | Continue reading
John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ exploded a discipline. But his greatest legacy might be a quieter project of re-enchantment | Continue reading
Virtue signalling has been called out for its alleged hypocrisy. But is it, in fact, a true sign of morality? | Continue reading
The British filmmaker Christian Cerami knows firsthand how easily white working-class teens in the north of England can succumb to racist and Islamophobic ideologies. His short documentary Black Sheep (2015) follows Sam and Jack, two teenage brothers in the same town where Cerami … | Continue reading
Protestantism didn’t hold back science – it revolutionised its methods, its theoretical content and its social significance | Continue reading
Ah, the holiday season: friends, family, good cheer and cheap disposable goods at every turn. This wryly festive short by the UK filmmaker Toby Smith takes us on a brief tour of what are known as ‘just-in-time’ factories in Yuwe in China, facilities that produce seasonally themed … | Continue reading
Virtue signalling has been called out for its alleged hypocrisy. But is it, in fact, a true sign of morality? | Continue reading
Forget prophecy and wisdom. Using the I Ching is a weirdly useful way to open your mind to life’s unexpected twists | Continue reading
What people most fear is not difference, but a world in which nothing and nowhere is unique, in which everyplace is the same | Continue reading
For two decades following the Second World War, music in the Soviet Union was tightly restricted by the Communist Party. Bans on Western genres such as boogie-woogie, jazz and, later, rock ’n’ roll, as well as other styles deemed threatening to the political order, extended not o … | Continue reading
A Classical education was never just for the elite, but was a precious and inspiring part of working-class British life | Continue reading
Our smiling saviour: the axolotl can regrow a limb, a heart, a brain. Is this the great hope of regenerative medicine? | Continue reading
Is the figure of the author bad for literature? Un-authored Roman literature and the transcendence of mere individuality | Continue reading
For two decades following the Second World War, music in the Soviet Union was tightly restricted by the Communist Party. Bans on Western genres such as boogie-woogie, jazz and, later, rock ’n’ roll, as well as other styles deemed threatening to the political order, extended not o … | Continue reading
Is the figure of the author bad for literature? Un-authored Roman literature and the transcendence of mere individuality | Continue reading
Our smiling saviour: the axolotl can regrow a limb, a heart, a brain. Is this the great hope of regenerative medicine? | Continue reading
Plenty of creatures use mimicry to conceal themselves from predators, but few are as wholly dedicated to the art of disguise as the giant Malaysian leaf insect (Phyllium giganteum). These clever copycats use protective resemblance to camouflage themselves as the leaves of the fru … | Continue reading
Disability activists who look to queer theory for their politics end up limiting their real transgressive potential | Continue reading
‘I am sorry I don’t understand. Can you explain?’In anticipation of making a short film about her grandmother, the German animator Dal Park conducted extensive research before travelling to South Korea for an interview. This included reading and rereading a book that her grandmot … | Continue reading
Trainers working with dogs every day have documented extraordinary talents and skills. Will science ever catch up? | Continue reading
Cuneiform, the ancient Sumerian script that emerged in Mesopotamia’s Fertile Crescent circa 3000 BCE, is the first known system of written communication to move beyond pictograms into abstract representations of language. In this lecture, as unexpectedly funny as it is edifying, … | Continue reading
Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material and in fact can make them less able to manage emotions | Continue reading
Cuneiform, the ancient Sumerian script that emerged in Mesopotamia’s Fertile Crescent circa 3000 BCE, is the first known system of written communication to move beyond pictograms into abstract representations of language. In this lecture, as unexpectedly funny as it is edifying, … | Continue reading
Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material and in fact can make them less able to manage emotions | Continue reading
If the competitive nature of existence ever gets you down, you might want to consider one leading theory of how complex life came to emerge in the first place. The endosymbiotic theory of mitochondrial origin (also known as symbiogenesis) is one of the leading theories for the de … | Continue reading
The science-versus-religion opposition is a barrier to thought. Each one is a gift, rather than a threat, to the other | Continue reading
Philosophy has long recognised death anxiety. It is time to acknowledge the mystery and trauma of being born | Continue reading
Wild, feral and fossil-fuelled, fire lights up the globe. Is it time to declare that humans have created a Pyrocene? | Continue reading
‘It gets heavier and heavier by the minute. Until the callus forms. Right, Memi?’With an unflinching focus, the Argentinian filmmaker Manuel Abramovich traces the boredom, annoyance and pain – and perhaps confusion – that pass across the face of María Emilia Frocalassi ('Memi') a … | Continue reading
In this animated self-portrait, the UK artist Emma Allen uses her face as a canvas for a remarkable, millennia-spanning stop-motion. With her features always visible but transformed by the images painted across them, Allen takes us through evolution, from primordial creatures, th … | Continue reading
Pragmatism was not eclipsed after Dewey: it has been a constant and dominant force in philosophy for nearly 100 years | Continue reading
Evolutionary theory says men stray to increase offspring, but what motivates women? Enter the mate-switching hypothesis | Continue reading
Virtual reality is not a modern-day empathy machine – and this is why it’s dangerous to think otherwise | Continue reading
Existential therapy explores the darkest corners and craggy edges of the many-sided self. The result is true transformation | Continue reading