From the magazine
Lives & IdeasPhilosophy Basics
Explore the library
Plain-English guides to the philosophers, ideas and movements that shaped how we think.
Most read in the library
What readers are looking up this week.
From the magazine
Ideas from philosophy at work in real lives, studies and decisions.
The Good Life →
The art of letting go: 8 Buddhist ideas for people who hold on too tightly
What Confucius taught about honoring your parents, and 7 ways it still applies to adult children today
Human Nature →
Parents are only as happy as their least happy grown child. Research suggests one adult child who is struggling can weigh on a parent for years, and the other kids’ successes don’t make up for it.
Hiroo Onoda kept fighting World War II in a Philippine jungle for 29 years, dismissing leaflet after leaflet saying the war was over, and only laid down his rifle in 1974 when his former superior, by then a bookseller, flew out to order him to stop
Lives & Ideas →
Descartes said animals were machines. Scientists now say the question isn't whether they feel.
In 1946, about a year after leaving the Nazi camps, psychiatrist Viktor Frankl dictated a short book in nine days and wanted it published without his name. By his death in 1997, Man's Search for Meaning had sold over 10 million copies.
New to philosophy? Start here.
A short, guided way into the big questions and the people who asked them.



