In his Introduction to Lectures on the Philosophy of World History (1837), Hegel argues that there are three ways of doing history. The first of these is original history. Original history refers to ...

Jeff Mason on Kierkegaard’s three forms of life: the ethical, the aesthetic and the religious. Why get up in the morning? Should we get up for ourselves, for others, or for the Christian God? If we ...

Welcome to the 4th Philosophy Now Award for Contributions in the Fight Against Stupidity. I’m delighted to say that we’re giving this year’s award to Professor Noam Chomsky. Stupidity comes in many ...

Brian King says that life’s meaning is a question of purpose; but what is the purpose of human existence? In the expression ‘the meaning of life’, people more often than not mean ‘purpose’ when they ...

Ralph Blumenau on why things may not be what they seem to be. Before Kant, philosophers had divided propositions into two kinds, under the technical names of ‘analytic’ and ‘synthetic’. Propositions ...

Scott Remer thinks we arendt happy without a community and considers the complete reconstruction of the modern world to be well worth weil. In her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah ...

Ian James Kidd takes a look at humanity through dark glasses. The condemnation of humankind is very topical these days. Given the global environmental crisis, the rise of far-right ideologies, ...

Martin Jenkins looks at the life of an influential early political philosopher. Etienne de la Boétie is probably best known in the English-speaking world through a footnote in his friend Michel de ...

Sophia Gottfried meditates on the emptiness of non-existence. In philosophy there is a lot of emphasis on what exists. We call this ontology, which means, the study of being. What is less often ...

Brandon Robshaw wonders what the attitude of liberal states should be towards face coverings for women. Some years ago I was teaching a Philosophy A-level class at a Sixth Form college ...

Sam Woolfe asks if pessimism is a proper response to life or a symptom of depression. If you have a pessimistic philosophical outlook on the world then it makes sense that you would also feel ...

Patrick Stokes discusses some of the ethical problems arising in teaching ethics. In their (not infrequent) darker moments, academics have been known to observe wryly that students’ grandparents seem ...