Philosophy

Contraception and Counterrevolution

An Interview with Corey Robin

After the Slaughter

Have recent events in Afghanistan brought the war to a critical turning point? For U.S. troops stationed there, little has changed.

Back in Time

Julian Barnes asks: How much of what we think makes us special is only a trick of memory?

Elevating the Discourse

An Interview with Robert C. Post

What We Owe to Each Other

David Graeber on student loan debt, academia, and the value of education.

What We Owe to Each Other

David Graeber on why we don’t put babies’ lives ahead of Citibank’s shareholders and whether we should renew the tradition of debt jubilees.

Blunt Instrument

Sanctions don’t promote democratic change.

Citizen Philosophers

Teaching philosophy in Brazil is a political project.

Cheating Death

Philosophers Ponder the Afterlife

Not So Nasty, Brutish, and Short

Steven Pinker’s Good News

A Shared Fate

Europeans might accept supranational democracy in theory, but cannot see it as part of their lives.

Occupation as Fairness

What John Rawls Would Make of the Occupy Movement

Libertarianism and Liberty

It’s not clear how libertarians argue from their starting point of liberty to their policy conclusion of limited government and lower taxes.

Video: The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Redux

Video of an Ideas Matter event held at MIT on September 22, 2011

Advertising Away Our Privacy

By routinely giving away a huge amount of personal data, everyday Internet users might already have become law enforcement’s greatest ally.

Me, Inc.

Even if the Supreme Court decided that corporations are in every way like persons, there might be limits on the corporate role in politics.

It Takes Two

In contrast to Loving v. Virginia, on the same-sex marriage issue the Court may have to make a decision before a national consensus emerges.

Run For Office

Voting is important, but American democracy depends on another form of civic participation: running for office.

Budgetary Hemlock

Nevada Seeks to Eliminate Philosophy

Passing Through

Why the Open Internet Is Worth Saving

How to be Happy

The ethics of David Foster Wallace.

Legerdemath

In my time working at Citigroup, I learned how to connive customers.

No Objections

What history tells us about remaking marriage

Making Muslim Democracies

The history of Christian Democracy provides reasons for optimism and lessons for the future in Turkey. 

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