philopapers

Robert Michael Ruehl calls for a friendly revolution. Western philosophers have enthusiastically praised friendship. A few intellectuals have raised doubts about it, such as Thomas Hobbes and Søren Kierkegaard, but friendship has inspired many others, including Aristotle, Francis Bacon, C.S. Lewis, and Mary E. Hunt, who have esteemed its benefits, especially the reciprocal commitment to […]

Tim Madigan and Daria Gorlova explain Aristotle’s understanding of good friends and tell us why we need them. Although he lived long ago, the ethical writings of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) still have relevance to the present day, particularly when we want to understand the meaning of friendship. In Books VIII and IX

George Singleton asks why we splash out on luxuries worth a month’s income, struggle to give up smoking, and resort to below-the-belt insults in heated arguments. Almost all heavy smokers are well aware of the likely consequences of their tobacco tendencies. Many even concede that it would be best to give up the habit. Still,

Raymond Boisvert explores prominent ethical facets of Frankenstein. Sir Walter Scott wrote one of the few favorable reviews of Frankenstein. He described the story as “philosophical and refined.” Following Scott, we can examine Mary Shelley’s novel for the ways it intersects with philosophical and refined positions dealing with good and evil. These fall into three

Are we what we eat? Feast your mind on the next few articles, says this issue’s editor Jeremy Iggers, philosopher and restaurant critic. “Know Thyself.”inscription at the oracle at Delphi. “You are what you eat.”American proverb. The inscription at Delphi challenged philosophers to explore the mystery of human identity, but several contributors to this issue

Lisa Heldke sticks up for the pastry chefs against Plato and the physicians. In Plato’s dialogues, food and food-related references spring up with a frequency that becomes rather impressive when one begins paying attention to them. They are nearly always found intertwined with discussions of bodily health, virtue, and knowledge. In the Republic, for example,

Therese Dykeman on a case for a Sherlock Holmes and Dorothy Sayers. American women philosophers supposedly did not exist until the mid twentieth century. Of course, that wasn’t true, for it is no more possible for a mind conducive to philosophic thought to cease being so, than for a season to arrive out of order.

Cameron Hendy thinks it’s about time we all stopped. Do you recall the first time that you stumbled across Peter Zapffe (1899-1990) – assuming that you ever have done? I do. His antinatalism – the idea that the human race should stop reproducing – was new to me at the time; simultaneously exhilarating yet terrifying.

When Kant wrote the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, he addressed the question of the status of metaphysics itself. It had fallen into low regard in the previous century or so, struggling to keep up with advances in mathematics and the sciences and easily co-opted for dogmatic or oppressive projects. Kant’s own view was that one

Though it is not very widely discussed in the Anglophone world, Lebensphilosophie was a key movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe. The conceptual anchor of Lebensphilosophie, as its name suggests, is that of “life” (5)—in particular, human life (6). It is from this standpoint that the exponents of Lebensphilosophie propose to offer a distinctive philosophical