According to Shénnóng, rulers had a limited number of very simple functions, mainly concerning agriculture. A ruler should teach people agricultural arts, inspect their fields, and keep a grain store. (more...)

This April, we begin a new free, online reading group for Epicurus’ Principal Doctrines. We will read the text within 5 weeks, with online commentary, discussions, explanations and weekly summaries. Everyone is welcome to come along and experience this timeless classic in the philosophy of happiness. (more...)

What is pure awareness? Douglas Harding (1909-2007) proposed a series of simple but surprising experiments that one can perform to learn more about oneself as the subject of one’s own first person view. (more...)

Daily Philosophy has launched a new format: the Daily Philosophy printable magazine. Download it now and get all free and premium articles, plus all perks of the premium membership. (more...)

Since governments are charged with pursuing the popular well-being and not state power or prosperity, wars of aggression are illegitimate. - David Cockayne on how classic Confucianism would see wars. (more...)

In ‘The Duty of a Philosopher in this Age’ (1964), Bertrand Russell wrote that the philosopher’s duty was now to forget philosophy and to study “the probable effects of a nuclear war.” But is it true that we need to forget philosophy in order to save the world? A guest article by Prof. Stephen Leach. (more...)

A history of philosophy in its most famous quotes. Today: Jeremy Bentham on the suffering of animals: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” (more...)

What are the laws that apply during a war? We discuss the jus in bello and the requirements of discrimination, proportionality and necessity. Just War Theory applied to the current conflict in the Ukraine. (more...)

What are the moral rules for war, how can wars be justified and are we obliged to help a country that has been attacked? Just War Theory applied to the current conflict in the Ukraine. (more...)

Are we driving ourselves insane? And have we been doing so for over a hundred years? To understand this, we need to understand how we came to think of ourselves as depressed. (more...)

Explore philosophy through its most famous quotes! Today: Socrates on knowing that you know nothing. (more...)

Explore philosophy through its most famous quotes! Today: Immanuel Kant on how to treat human beings. (more...)

It is often supposed that greater empathy is a good thing. But this is a mistake, unless one assumes that being empathetic will inevitably bring it about that one treats others better. (more...)

Explore philosophy through its most famous quotes. Today: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: “It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul…” (more...)

Radical scepticism has a good claim to be both the longest lasting tradition in philosophy and the consistently least popular. There’s a lot to be said for it. (more...)

The Frankfurt School is generally taken to mean a lose collection of thinkers who first congregated around the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. (more...)

The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus (50-135 AD), one of the most important Stoic philosophers in history, recommends seeing obstacles in our lives as opportunities to improve. (more...)

What exactly do we mean when we say that “nothing matters”? More than sixty years ago, the British philosopher Richard Mervyn Hare attempted to answer this question in an early essay. (more...)

What makes our death bearable? How do we create meaning from the certainty of our own deaths? Prof. John Shand analyses the question. (more...)

In the past year, we went together on a journey to explore five different philosophies of happiness and to try to apply them to our own time and our own lives. (more...)

It is impossible to identify one person who is supposed to be the “father” or “mother” of philosophy, but Diotima, Socrates, Plato, Aspasia of Miletus, Aristotle, Hypatia of Alexandria, Confucius, Lao Zi and Ban Zhao might be considered influential figures within their respective traditions. (more...)