Pauline O’Flynn explores de Beauvoir’s argument that punishment is necessary to demonstrate that the degradation of humanity can never be ignored. Simone de Beauvoir poses a disturbing moral question ...

Articles in category 'Columns : Philosophical Haiku'. Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) by Terence Green [Issue 171: December 2025 / January 2026] ...

Ray Boisvert tells us about Camus’ essential ambivalence towards the world. If ever there were a poster child for French meritocracy, it would be Albert Camus. He was not yet two when his father was ...

Imadaldin Al-Jubouri on the medieval Islamic philosopher who pioneered the scientific understanding of history. Some consider the Italian philosopher Vico (1668-1744) to have been the founder of ...

Tim Madigan on September 11th and on a longshoreman who understood the psychology of mass movements. After the initial horrified reaction I experienced on September 11th, my first question was: How ...

Colin Wilson pays attention to Whitehead’s awareness of meaning. The title sounds almost self-contradictory. What has the creator of the Philosophy of Organism in common with Kierkegaard, Sartre or ...

Hegel’s philosophy of history is most lucidly set out in his Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, given at the University of Berlin in 1822, 1828 and 1830. In his introduction to those ...

Mark Conard reveals the metaphysical truths lurking under the rug in Tarantino’s cult classic. Nihilism is a term which describes the loss of value and meaning in people’s lives. When Nietzsche ...

Rogério Severo looks at the brain to see the world anew. It seems there was a time when metaphysicians were all of a single species. Now they appear to make up at least two. Of the newer kind is the ...

The first English version of a classic essay by Peter Wessel Zapffe, originally published in Janus #9, 1933. Translated from the Norwegian by Gisle R. Tangenes. One night in long bygone times, man ...

Jesse Prinz argues that the source of our moral inclinations is merely cultural. Suppose you have a moral disagreement with someone, for example, a disagreement about whether it is okay to live in a ...

Julian Savulescu and Ingmar Persson argue that artificial moral enhancement is now essential if humanity is to avoid catastrophe. For the vast majority of our 150,000 years or so on the planet, we ...