Thinking

Death is the great and terrifying unknown, awaiting us all at the end of this life. Giving it a personality makes it easier to gaze upon.

In Orwell’s dystopian novel, the government uses Newspeak to control thoughts by controlling language. But thoughts do not require language.

Pokémon has people wandering the world to enslave wild and magical creatures so they can fight in painful blood sports. What’s fun about that?

If you want to be an authentic person, embrace reality. Don’t try to clamber your way up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Setting resolutions for the new year means you think the future is up to you — but is it?

In determining what qualifies as solid science, controversy is inevitable.

The gospels imply that Jesus became famous as much for his exorcisms as his ministry.

Jean Paul Sartre summed up the existentialist idea of “bad faith” through a waiter who acted a bit too much like a waiter.

People can lose their authentic selves when they don’t honestly confront life’s potential, according to the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.

For such a near-universal concept, the definition of “heroism” is difficult to pin down.

Do your kids a favor and give them the gift of philosophy this Christmas.

Role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons offer a valuable insight: Life is about shifting labels.

Scientific pluralism is the notion that some questions must be approached from many angles. How can we integrate these scientific models?

Truth needs us to define the rules, grammar, and criteria for true statements. But can we do this within language itself?

The most momentous and significant events in our lives are the ones we do not see coming. Life is defined by the unforeseen.

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.