Philosophy For Our Times

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes Fulfill your dreams and make the most of your life! So advocate headmasters, moralists and revolutionaries. Yet poet John Betjeman's principal regret was that he did not have more sex. Is life not about goals and ambition but about the moment of being? Or is making our dreams real the only way to fulfillment?...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes Copernicus and Darwin taught us to be skeptical of feeling we were special. Yet from the size of the electron to the cosmological constant our universe is strangely fine-tuned for life. Is this a spectacularly fortuitous accident? Has the universe been tailored for us or do the theories just make it look that...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes At 10 billion matches, Tinder has made more connections than there are people. But neuroscience reveals that too much choice can increase expectations and reduce desire. Is choice actually a bad thing? Have dating apps democratised intimacy, or are they warping our relationships beyond repair? KCL philosopher...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes Mathematics is rarely seen as a romantic discipline. But 30% of couples now meet using online algorithms. Could big data be the key to making love last? And if so what makes for the perfect match? eHarmony's Chief Scientist Steve Carter unveils new research into the science of love and compatibility. (Support...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes Terror attacks on satellites would cause mass destruction within moments. Why are we ignoring the risks? Space security expert and Chatham House Research Director Patricia Lewis reveals the silent dangers in space. There are thousands of big ideas to discover at IAI.tv – videos, articles, and courses waiting...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes In 2013 we found the Higgs boson. Then, in early 2016, we found Gravitational Waves. Eminent CERN physicist John Ellis asks: what's next for 21st-century physics? There are thousands of big ideas to discover at IAI.tv – videos, articles, and courses waiting for you to explore. Find out more:  https://iai...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes Where are the alternatives to injustice and uncertainty? Author of The Establishment Owen Jones makes the case for an end to despair and a new era of politics. There are thousands of big ideas to discover at IAI.tv – videos, articles, and courses waiting for you to explore. Find out more:  https://iai.tv...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes We all think we know what gravity is. But where gravity comes from stumped Newton, and 300 years later we are no closer to an explanation. We don't even have a mathematical account of gravity that applies in all situations. Why is a force so central to the universe so elusive in its character? Theoretical phy...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes We think we know what is real and what is not. Yet strangely we can't even agree what reality is made of - everyday things, particles and energy, or language and thought. Is reality essentially incomprehensible because it is beyond us? Or do we just need time and patience to uncover the truth? CERN physicist...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes The $3bn Human Genome project to uncover the genetic cause of disease was billed as ground breaking. Despite frequent positive newspaper headlines, critics argue we have uncovered almost nothing about disease. Will it eventually prove useful or are genes not the blueprint for life we had imagined? Author of T...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes Freedom is a goal we all endorse. Yes as neuroscience shows and history suggests, we are less content when we have more choice. Is too much freedom paradoxically debilitating? Do we need constraints to thrive, and might our chains be key to our freedom? Or is this a dangerous conceit of the privileged and fre...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes From bats to beetles, animals sense the world differently in order to survive. Yet we think seeing and feeling tell us how things really are. Might our senses be radically limited? Are science and logic routes to escape our sensory limitations, or is feeling the rain on our skin the closest we get to truth? C...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes We see community and society as good. Yet communities are also fortresses of privilege and conformity, as migrants know only too well. Is the tribe, from the football team to the nation, to be feared and contained? Or is finding our place in a larger group the core of what it is to be human? Author of Exotic...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes Madness is understood as the opposite of reason. Yet as Van Gogh and Nietzsche attest, madness can also be an inexplicable source of insight. Might madness be a strange form of wisdom rather than its diseased opposite? Or is this to make light of a condition that requires treatment? Author of Madness Explaine...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes We want "I love you" to mean forever. But neuroscientists claim three years into a relationship and romantic activity in the brain has ceased. Can love only be known in short doses? Should we accept romance as fleeting and abandon long term commitments, or can we outwit evolution and make love last? Scre...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes From Aristotle to Einstein humans have tried to make sense of the world. Yet despite huge advances a final explanation looks ever distant. What makes our lives and the world so puzzling and inexplicable? Is it the limitation of the human brain or is language not able to describe reality? Or is it to...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes We all want a better world, and we seemingly make progress, with more technology and less prejudice. Yet ideals and utopias are strangely difficult to imagine, let alone achieve. Is it that we just lack imagination or are leaders inherently corrupt? Or is there something impossible in the very idea? Philosoph...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes Philosophy as therapy is an ancient idea. Endorsed by Wittgenstein and popularized by self-help books. But isn't philosophy about understanding even if the insights are uncomfortable? Can philosophy be a dynamic force changing how we think and what we can do? Or does it serve only as a guide to everyday life?...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes More women MPs, more women CEOs, women it would seem are on the move. Yet the gap between successful women and the rest is growing. Might feminism's success paradoxically harbour the end of the sisterhood as we swap one inequality for another? Or are female care workers and CEOs still on the same side? Americ...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes Designer babies and human enhancement were once confined to fiction. Now biotechnology allows designer genetics, and many already choose the sex of their children. Where will this technology lead the human race? Should we be nervous of the ability to enhance ourselves or embrace an exciting new future for hum...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes If we have rights and ownership of anything it is surely of our own body. Yet we cannot dispose of it as we please, intoxicants are outlawed, and selling our body for sexual pleasure or organ donation is restricted. Is our body strangely not our own after all? Should we insist on our rights and freedom o...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes We structure our lives on the flow of time. Yet physicists since Einstein have argued that all time, past, present and future, is like space provided in a single block. Is the flow of time an illusion? Are we deceived when we feel time passing, or is it time to strike the strangeness from our science? Author...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes We all want to do the right thing. But from suicide bombers to Catholic priests, we have never been able to agree on what the right thing is. Should we give up on morality and see it as a fiction designed to justify beliefs? Or, despite our disagreements, is it still the most important tool we have to measure...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes We think we've grown out of the belief in evil. It's not in our genes and people don't get possessed. But across media and culture, from Star Wars to Isis, evil still holds us strangely captive. Why does the devil seem to have the best tunes? Is the battle between good and evil an essential part of being huma...

Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here:  https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes We want news to accurately reflect the real world. But in an age when competing channels with different perspectives are instantly available should we recognise this goal as an illusion? Should we accept that journalists set the world's agenda with their own fictions and fantasies, or is there a framework of...