Reading List A student鈥檚 guide to a good-enough year August 18, 2022 As schools begin to stabilize from COVID-19 disruptions, the pressures that have long been accumulating on students show no signs of slowing. Employment uncertainties, rising financial burdens, and unrelenting competition have layered on top of decades of cultural messaging to persevere doggedly and push oneself beyond the limits to achieve excellence. Read More
Essay A new way of life July 06, 2022 Every day billions of people devote a significant amount of time to worshiping an imaginary being. More precisely, they praise, exalt, and pray to the God of the major Abrahamic religions. They put their hopes in鈥攁nd they fear鈥攁 transcendent, supernatural deity that, they believe, created the world and now exercises providence over it. Read More
Podcast When Animals Dream June 20, 2022 Are humans the only dreamers on Earth? What goes on in the minds of animals when they sleep?聽When Animals Dream聽brings together behavioral and neuroscientific research on animal sleep with philosophical theories of dreaming. Read More
Essay Aristotle on how to write a story May 18, 2022 Back when I was a first-year college student and thought I knew everything already, I remember my English composition professor telling us that Aristotle鈥檚 Poetics contained everything we needed to know about becoming great writers. Read More
Essay Why some mistaken views catch on May 18, 2022 As I was walking back from university one day, a respectable-looking middle-aged man accosted me. He spun a good story: he was a doctor working in the local hospital, he had to rush to some urgent doctorly thing, but he鈥檇 lost his wallet, and he had no money for a cab ride. Read More
Essay Goodbye, Europe May 12, 2022 Depending on how you look at it, the timing was either fortunate or ill-fated.聽The Fifth International Congress for the Unity of Science met at Harvard from 3鈥�9 September 1939. Read More
Essay Why tech innovation alone isn鈥檛 good enough April 20, 2022 The list of crises we face today seems to grow daily. As if inequality and civil wars and global warming and refugee crises weren't enough, we have also grappled with a global pandemic and the sudden threat of nuclear war. Read More
Interview Zeynep Pamuk on Politics and Expertise January 31, 2022 Our ability to act on some of the most pressing issues of our time, from pandemics and climate change to artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons, depends on knowledge provided by scientists and other experts. Read More
Podcast Grief: A Philosophical Guide January 28, 2022 Experiencing grief at the death of a person we love or who matters to us鈥攁s universal as it is painful鈥攊s central to the human condition. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have rarely examined grief in any depth. Read More
Essay The pandemic has flooded the world with grief, but we鈥檙e not in a 鈥榞rief pandemic鈥� January 21, 2022 In a span of less than two years, Covid-19 infections have killed 4.5 million people worldwide. Experts estimate that each person who dies is significantly grieved by nine others. Read More
Podcast Listen in: Rescuing Socrates January 19, 2022 What is the value of a liberal education? Traditionally characterized by a rigorous engagement with the classics of Western thought and literature, this approach to education is all but extinct in American universities, replaced by flexible distribution requirements and ever-narrower academic specialization. Read More
Podcast When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People November 22, 2021 There is an epidemic of bad thinking in the world today. An alarming number of people are embracing crazy, even dangerous ideas. Read More
Essay Rediscovering friendship November 12, 2021 Plagues and pandemics are nothing new in history with the classical world of ancient Greece and Rome certainly having their share. Read More
Essay So what鈥檚 new? Innovation in ancient Greek experience October 29, 2021 When I worked in business in the 1980s I was struck by the constant demand for the new. The company I worked in produced and stocked a wide range of well-designed products for a varied international market, but customers would regularly pass over existing designs鈥攅ven the most recent ones鈥攁nd ask 鈥淲hat鈥檚 new?鈥� Read More
Essay Plant-based dietetics in Plato鈥檚 city for pigs October 20, 2021 The first thing to know about pigs is that they are not vegetarians. They are omnivores and their food choices pose no ethical dilemmas for them. Read More
