The Existentialism of Style vs. Substance
Camus, Sartre, and Beauvoir were misread, misunderstood, and misperceived by English-speaking readers due to interventions of publishers and editors.
Religion of the Devil, Philosophy of the Coiled Serpent
In yoga’s early days in the United States, skeptics warned it would lead people (e.g., women) of good faith and standing into paganism and ill repute.
Why Do We Love Thinking About Schrödinger’s Cat?
In physics, the whole point of the thought experiment is that it’s absurd. But in literature, it’s been used to explore all sorts of ideas and possibilities.
The I Ching in America
Europeans translated the Chinese Book of Changes in the nineteenth century, but the philosophy really took off in the West after 1924.
Fire and Brimstone
If our conception of hell was absent from Christianity at the time the religion was born, whence exactly does it hail?
The European MonEUlith: Nietzsche and Nationalism
What can Nietzche’s geophilosophical modes of thought offer us for understanding globalization in his time and pan-European politics today?
How Upper Lips Got Stiff
The truism that “boys don’t cry” is a Western social convention. Colonialism and imperialism made sure it spread East.
Adam Smith, Revolutionary?
By 1800, Smith—once considered a friend of the poor and an enemy of the privileges of the rich—was already being refashioned into a icon of conservatism.
The South Asian Human Rights Tradition
Human rights discourse drawing on ancient Sanskrit texts focuses more on the responsibilities of individuals and states than on the rights themselves.
Does Law Exist to Provide Moral Order?
Is social cohesion possible in plural societies? Philosopher H. L. A. Hart weighed in amid debates on abortion and same-sex relationships.