Bryan Magee: 1930-2019—the champion of philosophical wonderment
The author, broadcaster and MP sparked a love of academic philosophy in countless curious viewers and readers
Philosophy
David Brooks on the ugly love-child of liberalism
The Second Mountain is full of rambling anecdotes of exemplary virtue
The philosophical problem with our pursuit of “authenticity”
Become too authentic and you simply rule out self-improvement
In scripture, we find not just religious thought and theory—but a challenge to how we read
When it comes to reading religious texts, intellectual curiosity and reasoning can only take us so far. We must approach them with a mind open to complexity, beauty and troubling honesty
Whitman in Levi's and bards in banks: why are so many adverts using poetry?
From Nationwide to McDonald's, more and more advertisements are relying on the power of verse to shift their products. But while it's easy to be cynical, advertising's love affair with poetry tells us something important, too
The influential wrongness of AJ Ayer
Ayer’s work tells us important things about the shortcomings of Anglophone philosophy
Is reason the slave of the passions?
Two contributors debate David Hume's bold challenge to the primacy of pure logical thinking
Is anxiety what makes us human? Why Kierkegaard is still relevant today
Cosiness and its malcontent—meet the Socrates of Copenhagen
Why are we suddenly so interested in women scammers?
Figures like Elizabeth Holmes and "fake heiress" Anna Delvey do more than offer a good scam story—they open up a whole new way of thinking about young women's relationship to capital
Feel like time is speeding up? You're not alone
People are saying that time has sped up—and that digital technology is to blame
Shamima Begum and the logic of everyday violence
What began as a war on terror is now the violence of the everyday—as the violent fantasies about Begum remind us
The incoherence of “evidence-based policy-making”
The Independent Group promises a break with ideology-led politics but that is simply not possible to achieve
Parsley, steamrollers and the letter "H": how dialect shibboleths reflect our differences—for better or worse
As the popularity of the recent New York Times dialect quiz reminds us, we're fascinated by what our speech says about who we are. But what happens when telling "us" from "them" becomes a dangerous pursuit?
The invigorating strangeness of Friedrich Nietzsche
A new biography reveals Nietzsche to be a perfect gentleman—shy, attentive, and a little whimsical
Why it’s time to stop working
The burnout, the slob, the daydreamer and the slacker—which could you be?
What John Stuart Mill got wrong about freedom
Mill's famous vision of freedom is compelling—but of its own time. Instead of focussing on the individual, we should seek freedom through our responsibilities to others
Brexit is worse than stupid—it's thoughtless
What our politicians have engaged in is a refusal to think
Prospect's books of the year 2018: ideas
Books to help us understand our world
Did Albert Einstein believe in God?
A letter from the scientist which goes on auction this week is a New Atheist's dream. But the reality of Einstein's faith is complex
Homo narrans: why our human impulse towards storytelling has a dark side
Human beings are storytellers but that sometimes does us more harm than good