Jean-Jacques Rousseau in nature

Discovering the Joy of Solitude While Social Distancing

Does the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Romantic notion of solitude offer a lesson for those practicing social distancing?
Emliie Chatelet, Anne Conway, and Mary Wollstonecraft

3 Women Philosophers of the Enlightenment

They shaped the history of Western philosophical thought. It's past time to recognize their contributions.
Robert Brandom

Robert Brandom, a Philosopher’s Philosopher

Robert Brandom’s A Spirit of Trust, a groundbreaking new book on Hegel, seeks to unite analytic philosophy with continental.
The cover of A Book to Burn by Li Zhi

Burn This Book!

Li Zhi’s exasperation with the corruption, greed, and superficiality of the powerbrokers in his society fueled his rebellious writing.
A basilisk with a beam of light extending from its eye

The Extremely Real Science behind the Basilisk’s Lethal Gaze

According to the extramission theory of vision, our eyes send out beams of elemental fire that spread, nerve like, to create the visual field.
Nosferatu

Marxferatu: Teaching Marx with Vampires

For a younger generation trying to understand Marxism, the best way in may be: vampirism.
Otto Weininger

The Man behind the “New Man”

Otto Weininger's only book, Sex & Character, is a misogynist, anti-Semitic screed masquerading as philosophy. Yet it was enormously influential in fin-de-siècle Vienna.
aristotle and phyllis

That Time a Woman Rode Aristotle Around Like a Horse

In the Middle Ages, the legend of Aristotle and Phyllis exemplified the “Power of Women” trope.
Margaret Fuller

How Early Feminist Writer Margaret Fuller’s Memoirs Were Rewritten

Margaret Fuller was one of the most-read Americans of the mid-nineteenth century, but then men started to edit her for posterity.