The detail of the demon in Sir Joshua Reynolds’ painting The Death of Cardinal Beaufort was revealed after extensive cleaning.
Petworth House / National Trust
The Enlightenment saw science and rational thought replace the religious superstitions of the previous century, and demons became metaphors for the human struggle between good and evil.
Pigs with human kidneys? Brain-powered computer chips? Science is creating new kinds of living things – and our moral understanding needs to catch up fast.
Humility can help your interconnectedness with others snap into focus.
deberarr/iStock via Getty Images Plus
Humility doesn’t get the fanfare of virtues like courage, compassion or generosity. But without humility, those other virtues won’t get much traction in the quest to live a good life.
The science of human consciousness offers new ways of gauging machine minds – and suggests there’s no obvious reason computers can’t develop awareness.
Buffett’s first hit, ‘Come Monday,’ was written when the artist was deeply depressed and suicidal.
Bettmann/Getty Images
Simone Weil is one of the 20th century’s most remarkable, paradoxical figures. The Need for Roots, published in the year she died at just 34, is a tour de force of ethics and political philosophy.
Philosopher Markus Gabriel argues that a new enlightenment based on moral facts is necessary to overcome the darkness of our times.
Aristotle is considered the founder of political science. He probably wouldn’t be surprised at the state of political discourse in modern times.
(Shutterstock)
Aristotle believed that the biggest and most widespread source of political tension is the struggle between the haves and the have-nots. More than 2,000 years later, he’s got a point.
Jean-Paul Sartre in Rome, September 1978.
Francois Lochon/Getty Images
Being minimally Buddhist requires a practitioner to abstain from destroying any breathing beings. So how is it ok for some Buddhists to eat meat? Two philosophers explain.