Thinking

Society-changing ideas form through a three-stage process, argues author Michael Bhaskar.

Even some philosophers don’t think highly of philosophy, but we need it now more than ever.

The highest earning Myers-Briggs personality type? ENTJ.

There’s more to miracles than turning water into wine.

How we handle grief largely depends on our worldview. Here is how three famous philosophers handled the certainty of grief and despair.

The most unpleasant aspect of intellectual liberalism is that when speech causes emotional or mental pain, the offended parties are morally entitled to nothing.

All religions have totems, rites, and taboos that are considered “sacred.” Émile Durkheim believed society is largely underpinned by them.

If you see a political movement embodying all of these traits, watch out.

Dave Eggers book, “The Circle,” uses satire to illuminate how privacy is fast becoming a lost virtue in the digital age.

It’s better to pursue moral actions instead of the ephemeral state of happiness, according to the philosopher Immanuel Kant.

We all employ heuristics to help us deal with the world. But when we make a hasty generalization, we risk making a big error in our thinking.

Stoicism says that we should change what we can, endure what we must. The company we keep is something we can, and often should, change.

The infamous misogynist had some profound insights on romance.

Jains believe that karma weighs the soul down. This can be overcome through extreme asceticism, in which one slowly withdraws from life.

Our temporal experience of the world is not divided into a series of neat segments, yet that’s how we talk about time.

Which philosopher had the strongest arguments? David Hume, who raised some of the best challenges for science, ethics, and religion.

Baruch Spinoza suggests how to lead a virtuous and blessed life.

The question of anti-Semitism, Nazism, and a particularly nasty sibling haunted Nietzsche’s legacy.

Objective reality exists, but what can you know about it that isn’t subjective. According to some neuroscientists, not much.

Love him or hate, Karl Marx redefined geopolitics and shook up the world order.

Do right and wrong depend on culture, or does morality transcend place and time?

Augustine’s theology came to define Christianity, but there was a rival theology.

Coherentism accepts that circular reasoning is probably the best any of us can do.

A strange philosophical thought experiment forces us to ask if the world can be completely described in physical terms.

Medical science can save lives, but should it do so at the cost of quality of life?

Thales may have known the famous theorem perhaps as much as half a century before Pythagoras.

If you had perfect foreknowledge of the blessings and tragedies that will come in your life, would you make the same choices anyway?

What if you are the only person in the world who can think?

Utopia is like a John Lennon song but with golden toilets.

Some neurology experiments — such as growing miniature human brains and reanimating the brains of dead pigs — are getting weird. It’s time to discuss ethics.