Philosophy & Psychology
Machiavelli’s classic reveals how politics works
The name Niccolo Machiavelli is controversial. His work has become so synonymous with cunning political strategy, it gave rise to ...
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Waleed Aly’s post-liberal ‘monsters’
Liberalism is in trouble. Its underlying ideas still have some popular resonance, but they attract little support in mainstream politics ...
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Accepting free will doesn’t exist may make us less hateful and ashamed
In his 2023 bestseller, Determined, neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky argued that the interaction of biology and environment leaves no room for free ...
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‘Cultural Marxism’ is a conspiracy theory for our time
June 17, 1969. Prominent left-wing German political philosopher Herbert Marcuse is delivering a lecture at the Teatro Eliseo in Rome. Marcuse ...
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Trust in our institutions provides shelter from the storm
I can still picture it: a page from the illustrated encyclopedia my parents gave me as a child. A man ...
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Manufacturing insecurities in the manosphere
It’s pretty likely that you’ve now heard or seen the term ‘manosphere’, in the news, in your social media, on ...
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Is Richard Dawkins right about Claude?
In recent days, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote an op-ed suggesting AI chatbot Claude may be conscious. Dawkins did not express ...
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Habermas’ hope for a better future is more important than ever
It is impossible to capture seven decades of formidable intellect, wrapped into some 14,000 books and articles, in less than a ...
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On the obsession with ‘authenticity’
Today’s youth cherish ‘authenticity’, but is it a virtue? According to a report from Ernst & Young, more than 9 in ...
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Orwell’s desire for a new way of thinking about science
In October 1945, George Orwell responded to a letter from Mr J Stewart Cook in the leftwing weekly newspaper Tribune ...
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How Arendt can help us understand this new age of far-right populism
Sales of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) rocketed when Donald Trump won the 2016 US presidential election. Nearly ...
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Is empathy rational?
To me, empathy is being able to imagine, understand, and feel what it is like to be in another person’s ...
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