Philosophy for children

By Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore Last year my 92-year-old grandmother, April, wrote a letter to The Times of London: “Sir, Why do […]

By Tim Olds There’s nothing more democratic than time. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates and the Dalai Lama, […]

By William Watkin   Now Take one last look at your smartphone. You probably regard it as the cutting edge […]

By Allison Arieff Consider this fact of modern life: nearly all of the technological products that we buy and use […]

By Ai Weiwei Many of the problems in the world today, when one reflects upon them, call for an answer […]

We have an exciting announcement for New Philosopher readers: we’re collaborating with The New York Times on the current edition […]

No one can really know how much time they have left to live, though some have a better idea than […]

Carlo Rovelli, Professor of Physics at Aix-Marseille University and the author of The Order of Time, is interviewed by Zan […]

By Mark Colyvan & Brian Hedden Most of us have great faith in democracy. Such is this faith that when […]

“From this we learn that a wise prince sees to it that never, in order to attack someone, does he […]

Any new entertainment technology worth its salt is greeted as a portent of impending doom. In the 18th and 19th […]

If you go to the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London, you will find that it has been transformed into […]

If philosophy is good at one thing, it’s pointing out things that seem so obvious we don’t even notice them […]

Zan Boag interviews Peter Singer on the ethical issues that arise from travelling. Peter Singer AC is Professor of Bioethics […]

Bailed after what he claimed was the accidental gunshot homicide of his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer (“Come on, Bill, let’s […]

Søren Kierkegaard famously pointed out that the only way we can understand life is backwards – we are compelled to […]

“Life,” the American journalist and author Elbert Hubbard once quipped, “is just one damned thing after another.” Like many of […]

1. What is your demon? Laziness. And fear of failure. Luckily, they usually cancel each other out, but it’s a […]

People think that philosophy is about pondering, and ideally answering, questions like the following ones: Does life have meaning? What […]

Editor of New Philosopher Zan Boag interviews Hilde Lindemann, Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University and the former editor […]

New Philosopher‘s editor Zan Boag interviews Jane Roland Martin, Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Zan […]

Here’s one of my favourite neologisms: “hangry.” It’s a punning portmanteau. To be hangry is to be angry because you’re […]

Do you trust your doctor? Should you trust your doctor? A recent op-ed in The New York Times suggests that […]

It probably says something telling about human beings that the oldest surviving piece of literature is about our longing to […]

I despise gyms. I honestly couldn’t tell you if it is the nauseating funk emanating from dozens of perspiring bodies […]

David C. Wood is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy and Professor of European Studies at Vanderbilt University. Interview by […]

We frequently change our minds – most often about trivial things like the evening’s dinner plans, but sometimes about ideas […]

Think, for a moment, of who you are today, right now, reading this wherever you are – waiting in an […]

The ancient Greeks invented a whole bunch of important stuff: democracy, tragedy, philosophy (if you ignore India and China, which […]

Rhys Bevan-Jones works and researches in the field of psychiatry in Cardiff. He is interested in the relationship between psychology/ […]

If our minds are essentially what happens when our brains perform certain kinds of complex computations, then very powerful computers […]

“An evil-doer and a curious person, searching into things under the earth and above the heaven; and making the worse […]

The office man runs his ‘security pass’ through the turnstiles of the corporate building and clocks on for the day; […]

We are not exactly wage slaves, but most of us have to work for a living throughout the prime decades […]

Empathy and greed in the context of the workplace might seem too disparate to be discussed in tandem. One might […]

If you ever visit Copenhagen, you’ll probably find yourself trekking out to Langelinie to the statue of The Little Mermaid, […]

What do you do? I’m a mechanic; I’m a horticulturalist. It’s the first question we ask others, and the way […]

In 2006, scientists found a quahog clam living off the coast of Iceland that, on examination, turned out to be […]

Sociologists have long known that most of us are pretty nice. We work well in groups and take care of […]

The question of happiness and how to get it is endlessly entertaining. It’s one of the few topics on which […]

Living with a child who is learning to talk is always an amazing experience. A very special moment is when […]

Cake, sex and fame. Their lure is strong. If something pushes our sweet, sex or status buttons, we spark right […]

I know a rich man who buys properties. He decorates them, fills them with consumer goods and then leaves them […]

I The Meditation of yesterday has filled my mind with so many doubts, that it is no longer in my […]

It is a general complaint among mankind, Paulinus, that Nature is niggardly: our allotted span is brief, and the term […]

By Zan Boag American philosopher of mind Daniel C. Dennett’s early years read like something straight out of an adventure […]

If you had to choose just three theories to explain as much of the world as possible, which would you […]

How well do you understand the world? Do you think you’ve got a good grasp of reality or not? Greek […]

The original scene: Paris, 1900‚ La Belle Epoque. The city fathers approached a talented psychologist named Alfred Binet with an […]

By Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek I woke up my son Jan (9) for school, as I do every morning. He was […]

Think of the earliest memory you have. For me, it’s looking at the sea through a glass door at about […]

Pierre-Simon Laplace postulated a demon of vast intellect will full knowledge of the “forces that animate nature and the mutual […]

“Why do it in prison? Well, why do it anywhere? I do it in prison because I was asked, and […]

Think about what usually makes you angry, frustrated, anxious; most likely it has something to do with external events that […]

Stockists: Bookstores, Galleries & Delis You can find a copy of New Philosopher magazine at your local bookstore or news […]

Every night at 6.00 pm, I want you to sit in a room for half an hour. During that time […]

We sometimes joke about the world conspiring against us. For instance, I might suggest that it will rain today because […]