Being outside yourself
Interviewee: Simon Critchley. Interview by Nigel Warburton. Nigel Warburton: You’ve just written a book called ‘What We Think About When We Think About…
Life
Essays, interviews and ideas from New Philosopher.
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Eternity projects
By Marina Benjamin When the British Museum in London was in the process of acquiring its spectacular wave-form roof in the late 1990s, I…
Medicating the masses
In November of last year I took part in a public debate in London; the motion – which I proposed – was that: “Psychiatrists…
I should be so lucky
Bailed after what he claimed was the accidental gunshot homicide of his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer (“Come on, Bill, let’s do our William Tell…
Get a life!
“Life,” the American journalist and author Elbert Hubbard once quipped, “is just one damned thing after another.” Like many of the best one-liners, it’s…
13 questions: Ricky Gervais
1. What is your demon? Laziness. And fear of failure. Luckily, they usually cancel each other out, but it’s a constant war. 2. What…
How to live (like a Stoic)
People think that philosophy is about pondering, and ideally answering, questions like the following ones: Does life have meaning? What is a life worth…
Human engineering
You know the situation is getting desperate when three bioethicists propose genetically modifying humans to reduce our environmental impact. In a bizarre paper titled…
A life worth living
In 2006, scientists found a quahog clam living off the coast of Iceland that, on examination, turned out to be over five hundred years…
On the shortness of life
It is a general complaint among mankind, Paulinus, that Nature is niggardly: our allotted span is brief, and the term granted us flies by…
The project of being alive
It’s not the first time that a movie has been shown to a vegetative audience but for some reason the idea of plants watching…
You are your life, and nothing else
Existentialist philosophers teach us that we alone are responsible for creating a meaningful life in an absurd and unfair world. Standing on a cliff,…
