The astonishing mind of Derek Parfit
Parfit often said, “If my arguments don’t succeed, my life has been wasted.” Fortunately he was wrong. He ultimately failed, but more brilliantly than almost all the rest of us could ever succeed.
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Manners matter
To refuse politeness is to refuse to take your place in society, to throw grit into the wheels of social interaction. Like littering and petty shoplifting, what is harmless when done rarely by a few would be harmful if done regularly by the many.
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Next Big Idea Club
Julian shares five key insights from his new book, How to Think Like a Philosopher: Twelve Key Principles for More Humane, Balanced and Rational Thinking. Read or listen to the audio version—read by Julian himself.
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Coping with change
Why being prepared for the worst is only of limited help. and more in the microphilosophy newsletter
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What does it mean to be human?
In Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Enquiry and Hope, Sarah Bakewell reflects on 700 years of humanist thought, perusing the work of various writers, thinkers, scientists and artists who have spent time trying to understand what it means to be truly human. She tells the story of humanism, explaining why it has continued to flourish for so many years in spite of opposition from other groups.
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