Hume is the amiable, modest, generous philosopher we need today

Hume believed we were nothing more or less than human: that’s why he’s the amiable, modest, generous philosopher we need now | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

You should sometimes be bad for another’s good

Is it ever worth making someone feel bad in order to push them towards success? If so, what’s the cost of this strategy? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Can we know what music sounded like in Ancient Greece?

The music of Ancient Greece is no longer a mystery; recreating their songs reveals the roots of the Western tradition | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Hume the humane

Hume believed we were nothing more or less than human: that’s why he’s the amiable, modest, generous philosopher we need now | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Cruel to be kind: should you sometimes be bad for another’s good?

Is it ever worth making someone feel bad in order to push them towards success? If so, what’s the cost of this strategy? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Pharma's profits from chronic diseases and not cures

For big pharma, the perfect patient is wealthy, permanently ill and a daily pill-popper. Will medicine ever recover? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Why luck might be subjective and not part of the world

Optimists believe in good luck, pessimists in bad. But if it’s all a matter of perspective, does luck even exist? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

The robots won't take over because they couldn't care less – Aeon Essays

What stands in the way of all-powerful AI isn’t a lack of smarts: it’s that computers can’t have needs, cravings or desires | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Archive

The Georgia Archives building, also known as the ‘White Ice Cube’ for its pale hue, windowless facade and modernist shape, was a prominent feature of Atlanta's cityscape before the building's controlled implosion in March 2017. Standing beside the State Capitol since 1965, it sto … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

The unreality of luck

Optimists believe in good luck, pessimists in bad. But if it’s all a matter of perspective, does luck even exist? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Is religion a universal in human culture or an academic invention?

Is religion a common feature of every human culture, or an academic invention? On the radical divinity scholar J Z Smith | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

The forgotten children of China's prisoners

Twin sisters Wei and Yan and their younger brother Won are left on their own when their father is imprisoned for manslaughter. Like other children from poor families in China whose parents have ended up in prison or executed, the Zhang siblings face a bleak future. The children o … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Robot says: Whatever

What stands in the way of all-powerful AI isn’t a lack of smarts: it’s that computers can’t have needs, cravings or desires | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Don’t worry about feeling sad: on the benefits of a blue period

Why you shouldn’t feel bad about feeling sad, or how experiencing negative feelings can promote psychological wellbeing | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Is the Western dead?

A staple of American cinema since the release of the silent film The Great Train Robbery in 1903, the Western arguably became its defining genre with the release of Stagecoach in 1939 – the first of nine Western collaborations between the iconic duo of director John Ford and acto … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

We have an ethical obligation to relieve individual animal suffering

We have an ethical obligation to relieve individual animal suffering, just as we do with individual human suffering | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physicists (2016)

It began as a whim: talk to a physicist, $50 per 20 minutes. But those ‘crackpots’ taught me something about my subject | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Bär

Note: English subtitles for this video are available by clicking the ‘CC’ button on the bottom right of the video player.As the Second World War fades further into the past, the passage of time can make firsthand accounts told by its survivors and participants feel less like thei … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Out of nowhere

Does everything in the world boil down to basic units – or can emergence explain how distinctive new things arise? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Can we know what music sounded like in Ancient Greece?

The music of Ancient Greece is no longer a mystery; recreating their songs reveals the roots of the Western tradition | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

The respect deficit

Economic inequality is an urgent problem. Deeper still is our loss of mutual respect, the foundation of a fair society | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

How the marvel of electric light became a global blight to health

How over-lighting our homes and streets turned the modern marvel of electric light into an urban blight to health | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

How elephants listen... with their feet

The trumpeting of elephants is a magnificent and unforgettable sound to human ears but, beyond the reach of our hearing, elephant communication involves something truly remarkable. The high-frequency vibrations of their massive vocal chords can reach the ears of other elephants w … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Chronic

For big pharma, the perfect patient is wealthy, permanently ill and a daily pill-popper. Will medicine ever recover? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

To my best belief: just what is the pragmatic theory of truth?

Charles Pierce, William James and truth as a property of our best beliefs: the key concepts of the pragmatic theory of truth | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Claire de Lune

Vast lunar landscapes set to the aching, shimmering piano of Claude Debussy's 1905 composition ‘Clair de Lune’ (French for ‘moonlight’) offer an enchanting melding of science and art through the interplay of light, texture and music. The video, which traces the flow of sunlight o … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Clair de Lune

Vast lunar landscapes set to the aching, shimmering piano of Claude Debussy's 1905 composition ‘Clair de Lune’ (French for ‘moonlight’) offer an enchanting melding of science and art through the interplay of light, texture and music. The video, which traces the flow of sunlight o … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

On God's side? The challenge of liberation theology

Competing claims of being on God’s side test the limits of a liberal social order straining to accommodate militant believers | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Ghosts on the shore

In Japan, ghost stories are not to be scoffed at, but provide deep insights into the fuzzy boundary between life and death | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

The link between language and cognition is a red herring

Humans alone have language, but many animals clearly have consciousness. Are parallels between the two a red herring? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Better humans

Just as the groundwork for the internet was laid decades before its widespread use, many scientists believe the technologies that will usher in the era of human customisation and augmentation are being developed in labs today. Moving far beyond the prevention of genetic illness a … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

The marvel of LED lighting is now a global blight to health

How over-lighting our homes and streets turned the modern marvel of electric light into an urban blight to health | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Look up from your screen

Children learn best when their bodies are engaged in the living world. We must resist the ideology of screen-based learning | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Hair trader

A second-generation hair trader, Zhang Ming Ye makes his living as a broker operating between factories that produce wigs and hairpieces and the collectors who travel village to village across Asia in search of people willing to sell their long hair. According to Ming Ye, the hai … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Look up from your screen

Children learn best when their bodies are engaged in the living world. We must resist the ideology of screen-based learning | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

How to tell the difference between persuasion and manipulation

We influence each other in many ways besides pure reason. What’s the moral difference between persuasion and manipulation? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

There is no Muslim world

Islamists and Western pundits speak of ‘the West’ and ‘the Muslim world’ but such tribalism is dangerous colonial propaganda | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

How to tell the difference between persuasion and manipulation

We influence each other in many ways besides pure reason. What’s the moral difference between persuasion and manipulation? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

The last storm

Recently diagnosed with lung cancer, Mark Zabawa believes that he might be approaching the end of a life fraught with struggles, including battles with mental illness and alcoholism. In The Last Storm, UK-based filmmaker Liam Saint-Pierre follows Mark as he sets out on a bucket-l … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

How cosmic is the cosmos?

Ever since Heisenberg and Tagore, physicists have flirted with Eastern philosophy. Is there anything in the romance? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Do you see a duck or a rabbit: just what is aspect perception?

How Ludwig Wittgenstein used the duck-rabbit figure to illustrate ‘seeing as’ and aspect perception | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

How people do evil in groups. the case of Nazi Germans

Why some people choose to do evil remains a puzzle, but are we starting to understand how this behaviour is triggered? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

You gotta believe

The Book of Exodus chronicles the Israelites’ flight from slavery in Egypt under the guidance of Moses, and their eventual covenant with the Abrahamic God. While Jews celebrate this founding myth as a triumph, the Jewish US writer, cartoonist and filmmaker Nina Paley wonders whet … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

What kills you when a volcano erupts? It’s not what you think

When a volcano erupts, lava is the least of your worries: what killed the villagers of Pompeii will take your breath away | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

How evil happens

Why some people choose to do evil remains a puzzle, but are we starting to understand how this behaviour is triggered? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

The many deaths of liberalism

More than a century of death notices have not diminished the achievements and the necessity of liberalism | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

The street

‘I wondered if she knew I was waiting for her room.’Adapted from a semi-autobiographical short story by the Canadian writer Mordecai Richler, the celebrated and Oscar®-nominated film The Street (1976) tells the story of a young boy experiencing his grandmother's slow death while … | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago

Down with the larks: on the virtues of sleeping like a sloth

True slothfulness isn’t sleeping eight hours a night – it’s ignoring health and taking on responsibilities while underslept | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 6 years ago