Philosophy

Philosophy

Examine life’s biggest questions, from ethics to existence, with curiosity and critical thinking.

Silhouettes of two people seated and facing each other with a large smartphone between them, displaying multiple thumbs-up icons amid a swirl of digital psychobabble.
Joe Nucci, author of "Psychobabble," joins us to discuss how the misuse of psychological language risks blurring the lines between everyday problems and clinical diagnoses.
Book cover of "Strange Stability" by Benjamin Wilson, featuring a green pen vertically centered on a beige background with red and green text—reflecting themes of nuclear deterrence.
In this excerpt from "Strange Stability," Benjamin Wilson explores how the concept of "deterrence" went from explaining criminal behavior to becoming a nuclear strategy.
A sequence of four orange and black butterflies in motion, captured against a black background, their blurred wings a graceful display of butterfly wisdom in flight.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
Illustration of an orange fish jumping over a mountain slope toward a target line, with labeled bars A, B, and C on the right side, highlighting the theme of conformity.
What a 1950s experiment reveals about conformity in the age of the internet.
el gordo JWST rotated cropped
Although American Thanksgiving only comes once a year, the scientific rules that make our Universe possible are always worth appreciating.
A woman with long red hair, wearing a puffer jacket, stands outdoors with passion in her gaze—holding binoculars and looking up as a camera hangs from her neck.
Be weird and esoteric because humans are weird and esoteric.
A man in a suit sits on a chair in front of a white door, surrounded by a vibrant, abstract swirl of red, pink, blue, yellow, and green colors.
2hr 9mins
“Psychedelics crosscut so many interesting domains. They've been used for time immemorial by indigenous cultures. In our own Western cultural history, they really exploded on the scene in the 1960s, and were associated with radical changes to society.”
Book cover of "The Great Math War" featuring three black-and-white portraits—one of Georg Cantor—and handwritten math notes, with subtitle about three mathematicians fighting for math’s foundations.
In this excerpt from "The Great Math War," Jason Socrates Bardi explores how Georg Cantor revolutionized mathematics and reshaped how our finite minds conceived of the infinite.
Silhouette of a human figure made up of colorful dots with a cloud-like mist behind it, set against a dark background.
13mins
Everything ever seen — every star, mountain, and face — makes up less than 5 percent of the universe. Astrophysicist Janna Levin reminds us that the rest — dark matter and dark energy — is invisible, mysterious, and everywhere. We are the luminous exception in a universe of darkness.
A telescope beneath a colorful, abstract visualization of the universe, with a starry night sky in the background.
Every observation out into deep space is also a look back in time.
A woman with straight hair and bangs, wearing a dark top and necklace, poses against a light purple background with abstract squiggly lines and a white rectangular frame, reminiscent of an rf kuang book cover.
Kuang discusses the rituals, routines, and words of advice that have helped her write six best-selling novels in one decade.
A man sits on a chair in front of a wall featuring abstract black silhouettes of two opposing heads and interconnected lines between them.
57mins
“What's really interesting about neural networks is the way that they think or the way that they operate is a lot like human intuition”
Book cover of "Crush: Close Encounters with Gravity" by James Riordon, featuring a crushed red soda can with a green leaf.
From white holes to dark stars and multiverses, James Riordon explores the bizarre exhibits of general relativity's "cryptozoo."
A man lounges and yawns on a red chaise longue while a woman in a dress, caught in brilliant boredom, yawns at a table in a room with pink curtains and patterned carpet.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
A man sits on a chair in front of a white backdrop in a library with brick walls, wooden floor, shelves of books, and large windows.
1hr 26mins
Instead of treating belief as a private preference, philosopher Alex O’Connor examines how our moral positions shape institutions, obligations, and the ways we justify our choices. 
A person with an illustrated book as a head—pages open, filled with wavy black lines—appears to be brain reading as they stand against a plain light green background.
The technology might be much closer than you'd think.
A rocket launches above layered geometric shapes depicting clouds, a building, and a crowd, all set against a black grid background.
Before we can build the future, we have to imagine it.
Five books are displayed upright in a row: "Gödel, Escher, Bach," "Man’s Search for Meaning," "Red Mars," "The Road to Reality," and "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
These expert-recommended books reveal how big ideas can shape — and sometimes redefine — human progress.
Two women stand and speak in front of a projector screen displaying a graph titled "YIMBY Action’s Ladder of Engagement" at a presentation or workshop.
To build a better world, we first have to understand how change actually happens.
A woman sits in a chair facing a group of people seated on the floor in a casual indoor setting, with a vintage or sepia filter adding an air of longevity to the scene.
From treating specific diseases to targeting aging itself, Progress Conference 2025 explored the many routes to extending life.