Philosophy

Philosophy

Examine life’s biggest questions, from ethics to existence, with curiosity and critical thinking.

An illustration of a woman's head with lines drawn on it.
To hallucinate means you must first perceive.
Planets in varying sizes orbiting around a bright central star in a purple-hued cosmos, where life persists.
There are plenty of life-friendly stellar systems in the Universe today. But at some point in the far future, life's final extinction will occur.
A blue t-shirt with a yellow circle and arrow, representing the universe.
The second law of thermodynamics tells us that entropy always increases. But that doesn't mean it was zero at the start of the Big Bang.
A hand holding a light bulb with a thumbs down, symbolizing a rejection of new ideas.
What Shark Tank pitches, Sundance films, and unusual sandwiches show us about our choices.
A close up of a red blood cell containing stem cells.
Long overlooked, menstrual stem cells could have important medical applications, including diagnosing endometriosis
A man displaying conatus while running in the air.
We were not born to stagnate — the point of life (and work) is to go somewhere.
An image of a pop-culture city with a woman in the sky, representing future visions.
Do grim sci-fi scenarios crush our hopes for real-world growth? Author Michael Harris looks elsewhere to unblock the road to a better future.
Two men in suspenders standing next to each other in an office, possibly enduring the presence of a bad boss.
We can’t always change our horrible bosses — but we can transform the ways we interact with them.
An image of the earth with a mountain in the background, showcasing terraforming potential.
Whenever someone waxes poetic about terraforming alien worlds, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the ethical implications of the proposal.
A woman's feet in a hammock on the beach.
It may seem as though top performers are always on, but the secret to their success is taking the time to recharge.
A collage of Heidegger and Sartre.
If the daily grind feels like Sartre's phony act of "bad faith," Heidegger's sense of "being" can help redefine your role.
An image of a spiral galaxy in space.
In 1924, Edwin Hubble found proof that the Milky Way isn't the only galaxy in the Universe.
Tesla in a suit sitting in a chair.
"She understood me and I understood her. I loved that pigeon.”
wormhole nasa illustration
Without wormholes, warp drive, or some type of new matter, energy, or physics, everyone is limited by the speed of light. Or are they?
A collage of images capturing a woman with her eyes closed, hinting at the possibility of sleep deprivation.
Big Think recently spoke with sleep psychologist Dr. Jade Wu about the surprising consequences of forgoing sleep.
A graph showing the death rate on everest.
The world’s highest mountain is also the world’s highest cemetery, with some bodies serving as creepy landmarks for today’s climbers.
A man, engaged in the act of reading, is seated at a table with a newspaper in front of him.
To solve “addition bias” don’t punish people who subtract — call in the “friction fixers” instead.
The golden Buddha statue at McDonald's towering beside the iconic McDonald's sign.
Adrie Kusserow, an anthropologist and scholar of Buddhism, shares how her study of the religion and its history has reshaped her view of the world — and herself.