Search Results

Over the weekend I read Amy Chua’s paean to “Chinese parents” in The Wall Street Journal with morbid fascination. What felt morbid was Chua’s “Mommie Dearest” anecdote about battling with […]

Using the tools of philosophic inquiry to ask questions about the world around us can bring clarity of thought of clarity of expression.

"Happiness, like knowledge, and unlike belief and pleasure, is not a state of mind." University of Texas at Austin philosophy professor David Sosa on the requirements for felicity.

Or, could Call of Duty: Black Ops take precedence on syllabi over The Illiad? This question has fresh relevance when considering Charlie Crist’s current dilemma: to pardon, or not, the […]

If you’re only interested in physics as a tool for engineering, you don’t necessarily need to understand the true nature of what you’re studying. But why wouldn’t you want to?

A new book by a practicing physician details the extent to which pharmaceutical companies determine what the public sees as the medical profession in action.

Columbia professor of philosophy Akeel Bilgrami asks why we read literature when it contains information more readily found in non-fiction journals. The answer is in the medium's pathos.

In this brief video accompanying their obituary, the New York Times asks Ted Sorenson to discuss his relationship with President Kennedy. It was a relationship without contemporary analog, like Sorenson […]

"Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his college dorm room six years ago. Five hundred million people have joined since." The New Yorker profiles the young Internet entrepreneur.

"The key issue facing everyone in the next decade is figuring out how to use the Internet and how to discern its societal benefits from its over-hyped Utopian promises."

"Disenchantment is a result of our having over-intellectualized our relations to the world (including nature)." Philosophy professor Akeel Bilgrami advocates a wider view of nature.

Blogging has changed the art of non-fiction writing, says Andrew Sullivan, one of the first political commentators to embrace the form in 2000. When you blog “everything you write is […]

"There is no room in the universe of Hawking or most other scientists for the activist God of the Bible." Philosopher Julian Baggini charts the evolution of Western religion's deity.

It’s human nature to try to understand something new by comparing it to something we already know. We always interpret the present based on past experience. But when we make […]

Nathaniel James, Community Engagement Specialist at the Mozilla Foundation, spoke at American University yesterday about Mozilla’s “disruptive” plans to keep the internet open and accessible — plans that could change […]

What happens to a child when Atlas Shrugged becomes a bedtime story? New satire at McSweeney's: 'Our daughter isn't a selfish brat; your son just hasn't read Atlas Shrugged'.

At the NY Times today, beliefs correspondent Mark Oppenheimer reports on last week’s Council for Secular Humanism conference in Los Angeles.  His article discusses the infighting within the movement.  As […]

In 1994, as part of their successful gambit to gain control of the House, Newt Gingrich and other GOP leaders issued the “Contract with America,” a promise to pass eight […]

Princeton philosophy professor Kwame Anthony Appiah stopped by the Big Think offices this past week to talk how the concept of “honor” can be mobilized as a force for change.  […]

Maybe it was a good thing that I was headed out of town the day Juan Williams got whacked by the NPR head honchos. Because it probably wouldn’t have taken […]

He is charismatic. He is attractive. And perhaps his best weapon is an apparent agnosticism when it comes to the Money/Power manna of classic media moguls. Denton is a mogul, […]

Professor of law and philosophy Martha Nussbaum says the U.S. should continue to insist on a humanistic higher education. Korea and India demonstrate economic prosperity needn't be sacrificed.

Glenn Beck’s appeal is that he makes it all look so easy. I mean, all you have to do is wave your American flag, pledge allegiance to God (the white […]

Tension was evident as humanists and atheists gathered this weekend, reported Mitchell Landsberg at the Los Angeles Times.  At issue among the attendees at the annual conference of the Council […]

In another example of the strategic role that YouTube is playing in this year’s election, the Huffington Post has linked to a video montage of McCain’s pleas over the past […]

At the New Yorker last week, science journalist Jonah Lehrer penned a conversation-starting feature on the so-called “decline effect,” the tendency across scientific fields for a new and exciting finding […]

I’m back in DC after spending the previous two weeks in San Francisco as an Osher Fellow at The Exploratorium. It was my second visit this year to the world’s […]

Can work make you happy, and—more than that—can work be driven by a higher purpose? While a professional calling or high-profile occupation has long been seen to bring purpose and […]

The Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, the successor to the Mongolian Communist Party, has been in power for fourteen years out of sixteen years of post Communist Governments. The party asked […]

The FBI today released the 423-page file they had kept over the years on left-wing historian Howard Zinn, who died in January. When Zinn sat for an interview with Big […]