A rant about the ontological commitment of the existential quantifier. (more...)

In Plato’s Symposion, the doctor Eryximachos says that love is the harmony of opposites. This resonates with beliefs in the traditional medicine of many cultures, as well as with our concept of a “balanced” person. (more...)

September 26: Martin Heidegger’s Birthday (1889-1976) (more...)

In Plato’s Symposium, Plato defines love as the desire for the eternal possession of the good. (more...)

Did you know that singer Olivia Newton-John is the granddaughter of the famous physicist Max Born, one of the two people who claimed to have discovered the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics? (more...)

The philosophy of love is one of the smaller areas of philosophy but one that has fascinated thinkers since ancient times. Love is a very complex phenomenon that encompasses sex, friendship, self-love and selflessness, as well as God’s love in many religious traditions. (more...)

John Horton Conway (1937-2020), mathematician, inventor of the “Game of Life” simulation of cellular automata. (more...)

Without Bill Murray, who celebrates his 70th birthday today, many movies of the past 44 years would have been a lot less memorable. From Tootsie, Ghostbusters, and The Man Who Knew Too Little, to his tender portrayal of being Lost in Translation, Bill Murray has made every one of his many roles shine with his humanity and his very unique take on the glorious and melancholy fun of being alive in a crazy world. (more...)

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), socialist revolutionary, once said: “Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.” (more...)

The French Declaration of the Rights of the Man and the Citizen is a remarkable document, not only because its main ideas found their way into many national constitutions and the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (more...)

Mother Teresa, born August 26, was a divisive Saint who devoted her life to the care of the poorest in Calcutta, India. (more...)

Being right is a relative thing. No one illustrates this better than today’s celebrant: Galileo’s telescope, presented to the world on August 25, 1609. (more...)

In 1456, Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz, Germany, printed the first Bible with his new printing press using moveable type. In time, this led to an explosion of books and literacy and to the world as we know it today. (more...)

August 22 marks the birthday of both the first Geneva Convention (1864) and science fiction writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) (more...)

Today marks the birthday of Sergey Brin of Google fame (born August 21, 1973) and the first public presentation of William Burroughs’ calculating machine in 1888. The calculating machine formed the basis of a company that made some of the first modern computers, Unisys. Google was officially launched 110 years later. (more...)

August 20, 1890: Birthday of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. (more...)

It is too often assumed that hoarding commodities in a crisis is irrational and that everyone would be better off if nobody was hoarding things. But there are arguments to the contrary. (more...)

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), born on April 5th, created the Social Contract theory, which aims to explain how governments derive their power from the will of the citizens. Hobbes thought that a monarchy is the best form of government and that the king (or queen) should be able to do whatever they want without the citizens having the right to oppose them. (more...)

On March 28, 585 BC, Thales of Miletus was supposed to have observed an eclipse of the Sun. But what date was it for him? A short history of the difficulty of knowing the date. (more...)

Ruut Veenhoven, Dutch sociologist and happiness researcher, distinguishes four different types of happiness along two dimensions: 1. objective vs subjective quality of life and 2. chances vs outcomes. This four-quadrant model of happiness avoids comparing incompatible types of happiness to each other. (more...)

Paul Tillich, theologian, thought that God transcends our abilities to describe him. We should therefore not speak of God as a superior being, since calling him a ‘being’ already reduces him to the level of mere beings. (more...)