Friedrich Nietzsche was destined, like his father and grandfather before him, to become a Lutheran minister. From his earliest days he was steeped in a Christian setting, growing up in a household of ...

Van Harvey on the metaphysical aspects of an anti-metaphysical philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche shared at least one fundamental concern with the religions and metaphysical systems that he so criticized ...

Have you ever wondered whether everyone talks about you behind your back? Whether they are all keeping something from you? John McGuire discusses the Cartesian nightmare that is The Truman Show. Every ...

Julia Nefsky on the curiously strong connections between logic and humour. What would you say if I asked you to describe humour? What type of ‘thing’ is it? Perhaps you’d say that humour is a form of ...

The first four look reasonable; the last two are serendipitous and fortuitous effects. But what of approach 5, aesthetic judgement? This seems out of place, perhaps somehow in the wrong list. Can it ...

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 ...

Lars Elgstam argues for direct democracy and decentralization. How should power be distributed within a democracy? Who should be making the decisions? I shall try to convince you that the best ...

The first English version of a classic essay by Peter Wessel Zapffe, originally published in Janus #9, 1933. Translated from the Norwegian by Gisle R. Tangenes. One night in long bygone times, man ...

Peter Graarup Westergaard explains why love is never just physical, with the aid of Donald Davidson’s anomalous monism. Most people have felt the gap between the consciousness of love and the physical ...

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 ...

Michael Sandel’s critiques of our actions are under scrutiny by Philip Badger. That What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets is a subtle and sophisticated analysis of the impact of the free ...

David P. Barash says, not necessarily. Ideas have consequences. Few people – and probably no philosophers – would disagree with this. It is also unarguably true that not all ideas are equally ...