Benjamin Lay was a radical Quaker, an ex-sailor, and an unlikely pioneer of the world’s first modern social movement: abolitionism. Last week’s most read:
In 1971, Foucault met Chomsky in the Netherlands for their first and only debate. Watch the provocative Foucault spar with the professorial Chomsky. From the Aeon Video archive:
In 1971, Foucault met Chomsky in the Netherlands for their first and only debate. Watch the provocative Foucault spar with the professorial Chomsky. Aeon Video:
Today we launch Psyche, a sister site to Aeon exploring mental health, the question of ‘how to live’, and artistic and transcendent experience. It’s a big milestone for us! We hope you enjoy it
I went to a child psychoanalyst four times a week for three years. Reading her account of our time together years later, I am struck by how much she hated me
@_MichaelBacon
The first words to pass between Europeans and Americans were in the sacred language of Islam. The name ‘California’ might even have some Arabic lineage. How Muslims have been written out of early American history. Readers’ favourites 2019:
‘You are a way for the Universe to be in awe of itself.’ A Carl Sagan for our times, the theoretical astrophysicist Katie Mack’s video essay finds lyricism in black holes and the sands of Mars. Aeon Video:
@AstroKatie
@NCStateSciences
A Zen student asked how long it would take to gain enlightenment if he joined the temple.
‘Ten years,’ said the Zen master.
‘Well, how about if I work really hard and double my effort?’
‘Twenty years.’
We’re thrilled to announce that Aeon’s sister site, Psyche, is now live. With a focus on mental health, the question of ‘how to live’, and artistic and transcendent experience, we hope you’ll find Psyche a rich place to explore and learn
Resilient people are able to shift from one coping strategy to another, depending upon the circumstances – and humour can enable that essential flexibility
Amartya Sen is the century’s first great critic of capitalism: he saw most clearly how economics could be reintegrated into frameworks of moral relationship
Philosophy, medicine and psychology are overcoming Cartesianism: studies of embodied emotions and the emotive self are putting our whole organism back together again
While Plato and Aristotle were concerned with character-centred virtue ethics, the Aztec approach is better described as socially-centred virtue ethics – you realise your ethics with and through other people. Last week’s most read:
Elephants may have all the cognitive and emotional capacities it takes to be considered ‘persons’, not in the sense that they are Homo sapiens, but in a philosophical sense
The year 1945 is seen in the Nordic countries as ‘the golden year for children’s literature’ – with Pippi and the Moomins reminding us that however bad things get, it is always possible to imagine the world anew
For Hannah Arendt, hope is a dangerous barrier to action. In dark times, the miracle that saves the world is to act. For more on this, book tickets to the Sophia Club, where
@lyndseystonebri
will be exploring the meaning of violence according to Arendt
For the past 7 years Aeon has made expert knowledge freely available and accessible. From the 18 May, Psyche will continue this project by diving deep into psychology, practical philosophy and the arts
Virtue is a cooperative, not an individual endeavor. If the Aztecs are right, Western philosophy has been too centred on the individual's character – we become better together:
This animated adaptation of the poem ‘The Mushroom Hunters’ by Neil Gaiman (
@neilhimself
) is a celebration of culture, scientific discoveries and great scientists. On Aeon Video:
In 1971, Foucault met Chomsky in the Netherlands for their first and only debate. Watch the provocative Foucault spar with the professorial Chomsky. From the Aeon Video archive:
It’s a little known fact that the great logician Kurt Gödel believed wholeheartedly in the afterlife. Why? He set out his views in four letters written in unadorned language to his mother
Linguistic relativity holds that your worldview is structured by the language you speak. Does each language really embody a different worldview? History shines a light
While Plato and Aristotle were concerned with character-centred virtue ethics, the Aztec approach is better described as socially-centred virtue ethics – you realize your ethics with and through other people.
He developed theories of mathematical logic before Frege, semiotics before Saussure, pragmatism before William James, phenomenology better than Husserl, and universal grammar before Chomsky. Why don’t more people know about Charles S Peirce? Editor’s pick:
David Hume was suspicious of ‘enthusiasts’ – people who think themselves sufficient in reason and knowledge to be entirely confident about their beliefs. Today, the enthusiasts are on the rise:
Max Weber’s work is sometimes taught today as an elementary introduction to sociology, but what did he mean by the ‘spirit’ of capitalism and the ‘iron cage’ of modern life?
The mental load, the double burden, the third shift: back in 1949, Simone de Beauvoir questioned why a woman must provide peace and rest for everyone but herself. Readers’ favourites 2019:
For Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, parties were an expression of a philosophy of seizing life, and there were authentic and inauthentic ways to do this. Readers’ favourites 2019:
Human life has a fixed (if unknown) time limit: not only would immortality make us miserable, but we would cease to be distinctively human in the way that we currently are. Last week’s most read:
Even when it seems that you will drown in grief, or be overwhelmed by the injustice of your loss, Marcus Aurelius reminds us that you still have a choice: to understand your story as one of crippling defeat or of miraculous victory against the odds
Neuroscience suggests that believing success comes from merit makes people more selfish, less self-critical and more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Readers’ favourites 2019:
‘Culture is an empty vessel that can be attached to all kinds of political projects. Cross-cultural exchange similarly can serve reactionary ends just as well as progressive ones’
@yakabikaj