Philosophy

126 articles
  • Article Lead Image

    Can We Prove the World Isn’t a Simulation?

    You might think we have definitive evidence we’re not in a simulation. That’s impossible.

  • Article Lead Image

    You Can Save More Animals by Donating $100 Than Going Vegan

    By now everybody’s heard about the terrible treatment that pigs and chickens get in factory farms. For many, the solution seems obvious: eat less meat. But let’s look at that solution in terms of how effective it is. According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American eats about 30 farm animals […]

  • Gallagher_HERO

    Steven Pinker Has His Reasons

    The psychologist unpacks rationality and denies being a guru to the capitalist elite.

  • DeDeo_HERO

    Ian and the Limits of Rationality

    A student at the edge of reason.

  • Article Lead Image

    Electrons May Very Well Be Conscious

    Panpsychists look at the many rungs on the complexity ladder of nature and see no obvious line between mind and no-mind.Illustration by Yurchanka Siarhei / Shutterstock Last year, the cover of New Scientist ran the headline, “Is the Universe Conscious?” Mathematician and physicist Johannes Kleiner, at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy in Germany, told […]

  • Dang_HERO

    How to Make Sense of Contradictory Science Papers

    Published research is less about conclusions than science at play.

  • FitzPatrick_HERO

    Are We Cut Out for Universal Morality?

    If objective ethical values exist, we’ll have to give up tribalism to realize them.

  • Tonelli_HERO-F

    Our Most Effective Weapon Is Imagination

    Why science changes everything.

  • Article Recirculation Lead Image

    Do We Have Free Will? Maybe It Doesn’t Matter

    It’s hard to change people’s beliefs about free will. So, it can feel like a relief to realize that even when you can change people’s beliefs, it seems to make no moral difference anyway.Illustration by Triff / Shutterstock Belief is a special kind of human power. Agustin Fuentes, an anthropologist at the University of Notre […]

  • Article Recirculation Lead Image

    Here’s How We’ll Know an AI Is Conscious

    Zombies are supposed to be capable of asking any question about the nature of experience. It’s worth wondering, though, how a person or machine devoid of experience could reflect on experience it doesn’t have.Photograph by Ars Electronica / Flickr The Australian philosopher David Chalmers famously asked whether “philosophical zombies” are conceivable—people who behave like you […]

  • Article Recirculation Lead Image

    Should Marine Species Own the High Seas?

    To save the ocean, give property rights to the creatures living there