The following answers to this artful question each win a random book. Art is something we do, a verb. Art is an expression of our thoughts, emotions, intuitions, and desires, but it is even more ...

John Creigan considers whether hope helps us thrive or holds us back. Hope is often celebrated as one of humanity’s greatest virtues – a force that sustains us through adversity by fuelling dreams of ...

James R. Robinson asks, how do they relate, and how do they differ? ‘Empathy’ and ‘sympathy’ are often used interchangeably, because they are related terms. However, they differ in some important ways ...

Vikas Beniwal considers some philosophers’ core understandings. When someone asks ‘Who are you?’, it’s tempting to respond with labels, like ‘Asian’, ‘male’, ‘vegetarian’, or ‘student’. These tags are ...

Nigel Rapport steps towards a cosmopolitan love. “We are all human and should treat each other decently and with respect”, Ernest Gellner counselled: “Don’t take more specific classifications [eg ...

Buddhists paint vivid depictions of different forms of life: hungry ghosts at the peripheries of our world, or subterranean hell dwellers, for example. Such portrayals challenge modern sensibilities, ...

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In a clearing on the edge of the woods, a flying saucer stands on spindly legs among the still-smouldering vegetation. A door slides open, ...

Colin Stott contemplates Macmurray’s reunifying thinking. John Macmurray (1891-1976) was a widely respected Scottish philosopher who gained a certain notoriety for his attacks on the philosophical ...

For people with fibromyalgia, pain is a constant, all-encompassing presence that radiates throughout muscles and joints, ...