Structuralism arose on the continent, in particular in France, in the early 60s. The first ‘big name’ was Claude Lévi-Strauss, an anthropologist, who took on Jean-Paul Sartre, the leading French ...

Andrew Hussey on the death of a turbulent thinker. All followers of pop culture will know that 1994 was a good year for death: not on a par with 1969-70 (Jim, Jim, Janis), but epochal enough as the ...

Dale DeBakcsy tells us how to not mean what we can’t say. People have bodies. That’s one of those inconvenient truths that most (male) philosophers can’t shove under the metaphysical rug fast enough.

Duane Cady tells us why pacifism isn’t sitting back and letting the masters of war have their way. Pacifism rarely gets taken seriously due to a widespread cultural bias: ‘everybody knows’ that ...

Hans Lenk relates to different types of responsibility. In his The Devil’s Dictionary (1911), the well-known satirical writer Ambrose Bierce defined responsibility as: “a detachable burden easily ...

Thinkers in ‘Nazi language’ row • University philosophy threatened • Kojéve was a spy • Exiled philosopher seeks presidential pardon ...

Will Bouwman on how Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Parmenides & Zeno established empiricism, maths & logic as dominant features of Western thinking. According to Aristotle, the first Greek ...

Michael Faust reviews this film in the light of eternity. Is Groundhog Day one of the great philosophical movies? Viewed on the most trivial level it’s just another Hollywood rom-com, but on closer ...

Paul Cliteur asks: if an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in God, which God don’t they believe in? What is atheism? Although much used in contemporary language, not many people specify what they ...

Ramsey McNabb introduces moral particularism. Usually, when someone is called a ‘person of principle’ it is meant as a compliment. For the most part, we take that phrase as applying to the ethical ...

Angels, humans, the leaves on a tree; is each one unique or just an example of its kind? Peter Pesic explains why Leibniz thought even leaves are individuals. In the long debate on these issues, ...

Mark Conard reveals the metaphysical truths lurking under the rug in Tarantino’s cult classic. Nihilism is a term which describes the loss of value and meaning in people’s lives. When Nietzsche ...