Explore philosophy through its most famous quotes! Today: Socrates on knowing that you know nothing. (more...)

Explore philosophy through its most famous quotes. Today: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: “It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul…” (more...)

Explore philosophy through its most famous quotes! Today: Immanuel Kant on how to treat human beings. (more...)

Author’s reply to a review in Daily Philosophy of: Josh Milburn, “Just Fodder. The Ethics of Feeding Animals.” (more...)

Should a Liberal State Ban the Burqa? by Brandon Robshaw, is a very clear, instructive and carefully argued book that shows off philosophy at its best. (more...)

Josh Milburn’s “Just Fodder” is a very thoughtful and rigorous analysis of the ethical issues related to feeding animals. (more...)

As fauna became more complex, particularly with backboned organisms known as chordates, basic brain structures evolved. (more...)

There have been increasingly clamorous calls for the banning, removal, or controlling, or censoring of ‘misinformation’ as an enforced general policy. (more...)

The creation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds great promise, but with it also comes existential risk. (more...)

The Dao De Jing, literally “The Classic of the Way and the Virtue,” is traditionally attributed to an author known only as Lao Zi, which means “Old Master.” (more...)

For Heidegger, we let things be what they are. Chōmei, steeped in the Buddhist conception of the interdependence of everything, would concur. (more...)

In her honest and entertaining book “One Hundred Days of Solitude: Losing Myself and Finding Grace on a Zen Retreat,” Zen teacher Jane Dobisz recalls the three months she spent as a young person alone in a hut in the woods, bowing, chanting and meditating. (more...)

According to Immanuel Kant, practical jokes would be considered immoral because they treat the subject as mere means to others’ enjoyment. (more...)

What is meant is a form of respect that is a condition, one might say a conceptual precursor, to love proper. (more...)

We are not water pills. We are highly scientific magic pills based on an ancient organic recipe. (more...)

Why is there such a difference between the picture of morality one gets from books and the one so many people encounter in real life? (more...)

In our societies, an impressive array of vices is on display. Hypocrisy, greed, cruelty, prejudice… But what if many of these vices were necessary for human life? (more...)

Why do we have a criminal justice system? What could possibly justify the state punishing its citizens? Retributivism is the view that we ought to give offenders the suffering that they deserve for harming others. (more...)

Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek (August 19, 1921 - October 24, 1991). (more...)

Descartes admired her intelligence and Leibniz stood at her deathbed, but during most of her life, she was a penniless refugee. Meet Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia. (more...)

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was a British philosopher and writer, one of the most important analytic philosophers of the 20th century. (more...)

After discussing God and his choice of world, Leibniz turns to a more technical question: what are the fundamental constituents of reality? (more...)

One folly is the belief that governing is a skill requiring experts. (more...)

Every so often, a student comes to tell me they’re planning to step away from studying for a while. They want to go out into the world, they say — to gain some real experience. (more...)

Plato presents Socrates' skepticism toward the written word, and the limits of what can be derived through the process of reading, in the Phaedrus. (more...)

An interesting idea and a great table of contents, but the execution is unclear about who the ideal reader is — and will really satisfy nobody. (more...)

Ethical AI is less about building machines with moral status and more about building institutions with moral stamina. (more...)