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For many Americans a “moment of Zen” is the segment that ends every episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Those brief glimpses of contemporary life usually reprise an […]

David Brooks has a generous and eloquent column on the decision of “crunchy conservative” Rod Dreher to move back to his hometown of St. Francisville, LA.  Dreher is embracing the […]

“Consciousness of course is one of the largest questions of brain structure and function. And we approach it now perhaps differently than we have in the past with our new tools. But I’m not convinced that we understand it any better,” says Joy Hirsch.  

In the continuing flap over the Obama administration’s decision to require Catholic institutions to provide birth control under the new health care law, both sides have failed to come to grips with the complexities of religious liberty.    

In my experience it’s easier to change a home design than to change your heart, or your feelings. Take the case of “staying together for the children,” a familiar marital […]

In his Floating University lecture, Dr. Jeffrey Brenzel shows how our intellectual history is the story of rediscovering old ideas, and how these ideas will help you address permanent aspects of the human condition.

There are a number of issues at stake in the way Americans choose to think of their heritage and celebrate their creation story on Thanksgiving. After all, creation stories serve as a guide for how we function as a society today.

An article in the Wall Street Journal titled “The Churches Of Cain And Obama” attempts to explain the philosophical differences between these two men by examining the teachings of their […]

In his Floating University lecture Jeffrey Brenzel, Philosopher, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University, argues the classics will not only enhance your education, but help you live better.

Big Think’s newest blogger and atheist-in-residence, Adam Lee, asks magician and author Penn Jillette how he reconciles his atheism with his libertarian philosophy.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is drawing to a close, and with it the brave and caffeine-addled efforts of over 200,000 writers worldwide. Unabashedly privileging “enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking […]

For Bruce Finley, the benefits discussion is a major (and often lost) opportunity for companies to reach young workers in a meaningful way, getting them more deeply invested in their careers and their futures. 

Whether you see him as Herman Cain, The Herminator, or Herman the Horrible—any way you slice it, the Cain Controversy owns the GOP presidential nominee narrative for the foreseeable future. 

As we are rapidly getting closer to the end of 2011 which has been quite an exciting year for the education startup scene, I want to take a quick look […]

Are utilitarians bad people? Probably not. But is there nevertheless something wrong with them? This study, summarized in The Economist, seems to be getting around, and seems to suggest as […]

In this guest post, David Bellos, director of Princeton’s Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication, demolishes the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax. New Yorkers have more words for coffee than Eskimos do for snow, he says.

I’m on the road, so posting will be a bit light until tomorrow. Until then, enjoy philosophers Jason Brennan and Kevin Vallier’s on Philosophy TV discussing whether political beliefs based […]

As you have probably noticed, BigThink.com has undergone several cosmetic changes today, all intended to enhance your reading and viewing experience. We hope you like it, but we’re not done […]

The first book of philosophical essays in years with a shot at being advertised on the evening news asks what big questions are posed by society’s acceptance and men’s use of Viagra. 

So I promised you proof that David Brooks is better than he says:  He doesn’t really submit himself to the authority of the latest studies in neuroscience, and he still […]

Would you choose the state of equality and justice envisioned by John Rawls or the state of radical individual liberty envisioned by Robert Nozick? This question is posed by Yale professor Tamar Gendler in this week’s Floating University lecture.

I was reading a trade publication about industry forecasts for bathroom fixture trends some time ago (don’t ask). “Large bathrooms are in,” the experts said. It’s true. American bathrooms have […]

What makes Russell Simmons so successful in business and philanthropy? The serial entrepreneur shares his strategy on turning an idea into a successful enterprise.

So far we’ve concluded, following Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, that most of what we call higher education is really technical education.  It’s the acquisition of indispensable skills for […]

Particle physics. Human self-determination. Evolution. According to Renaissance scholar Stephen Greenblatt, we owe these modern ideas to an ancient Roman poem, rediscovered in 1417.

So here’s the advice of the maverick philosopher: The solid bourgeois may dismiss as so much nonsense philosophy, poetry, and other products of questers and romantics—all the while subscribing to […]

Slavoj Žižek is rarely at home in his flat in the Slovenian capital: he is philosophy’s answer to Bob Dylan, frontman of a live roadshow that shows no sign of ending.

Like the Beatles discography or the screenplay for Casablanca, the King James Bible is a rare instance of true collaborative genius.

So a professor of philosophy—Gary Gutting—opinionating for the NYT invites us to think about the relationship between politicians and intellectuals.  He says that politicians, to be credible, don’t have to […]

So obviously the division of human inquiry into the sciences and the humanities is ridiculous.  Reality, after all, is one. The opinion of scientists tends to be that they’re all […]