Ethicist and animal rights advocate Peter Singer has faced public outrage over his views on infanticide and euthanasia. Richard Taylor explains why he regards Singer as the most important thinker of ...

Michael Williams on death and detachment. In her article, ‘Is Grief Self-Regarding?’ (Philosophy Now, Issue 17) Christiane Pohl argues that the grief process is selfregarding and that, provided it is ...

Barbara Hands considers whether it is ever right for the law to limit your freedom of choice and action, for your own good. Fred and Bob are a gay couple who have been together for 15 years. Fred is ...

Shamanistic shyster or intellectual innovator, creative charlatan or exalted pioneer of philosophy – however one views him, Pythagoras remains the most famous name at the starting gate of Western ...

Structuralism arose on the continent, in particular in France, in the early 60s. The first ‘big name’ was Claude Lévi-Strauss, an anthropologist, who took on Jean-Paul Sartre, the leading French ...

Ontology is the branch of metaphysics which examines the nature and categories of existence. It asks questions like “What is the difference between really existing and only appearing to exist?”, “Does ...

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has had a run-away success with The Black Swan, a book about surprise run-away successes. Constantine Sandis talks with him about knowledge and scepticism. As I find myself in ...

Alan Kirby says postmodernism is dead and buried. In its place comes a new paradigm of authority and knowledge formed under the pressure of new technologies and contemporary social forces. I have in ...

For years debate has raged among African philosophers: does Africa have a distinct philosophical tradition, and if so, what is its nature? Rick Lewis asked Emmanuel Eze, who though based in the United ...

Philip Goff discusses a thought-experiment about consciousness. For the last five hundred years or so physics has been doing extraordinarily well. More and more of our world has been captured in its ...

Alfred Geier uncovers the erotic side of Socratic philosophy. In the Symposium, Alcibiades gives voice to some excessively lavish praise of Socrates, his former teacher. He tells his audience, and us, ...

Sam Woolfe says that we’re deluding our selves. In our day-to-day lives, it always appears that there is an I who is thinking, perceiving, and interacting with the world. Even the language we use ...