Is Forgiveness the Basis of a Healthy Democracy?

An Iranian Philosopher Posits That Only Absolving Others of Blame Can Open Dialogue and Rebuild Decency

Why do we have such difficulty thinking about forgiveness? Read the news on any day and you’ll find stories of war, injustices present and past, and attacks on democracy. It’s apparently a world of apathy and lack of empathy for one another. Forgiveness is not a virtue of this de-civilizing world. But it is the responsibility of outsiders like philosophers and artists to think about forgiveness because it is a powerful personal and political tool that is essential to democracy, to peace, and for personally coming to terms with the …

By Ramin Jahanbegloo | February 23, 2018

The Austrian Philosopher Who Showed That Words Can Spark Humanism—or Barbarism

Ludwig Wittgenstein Saw Language as a “Game,” and Whoever Makes the Rules Holds the Power

By Christopher Phillips | January 31, 2018

Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Austrian-British philosopher and logician, famously coined the term “language-game”—a term meant, as he writes in his Philosophical Investigations (1953), “to bring into prominence the fact that the …

Our Real “Existential Crisis” Is Bigger Than Trump’s Presidency

Philosophically Speaking, How Do We Live Free, Authentic Lives in a World Without Meaning?

By Robert Zaretsky | June 2, 2017

Apparently, these are existential times. During the weeks leading up to last year’s presidential election, The New York Times columnist Charles Blow announced that then-candidate Donald Trump was “America’s existential …

Why Extreme Moderation Is the Vital Alternative to Political Polarization

Theorist Tzvetan Todorov's Passionate Pluralism Is More Relevant Now Than Ever

By Robert Zaretsky | March 20, 2017

Last month, the Bulgarian-French intellectual Tzvetan Todorov died. A scholar on the history of thought, his writings influenced fields as disparate as anthropology, literary criticism, and history. His death was, …

Genius Alone Doesn’t Advance Big Ideas

World-Changing Thought Depends on the Social Context, Too

By Neil Gross | February 22, 2017

Where do big new ideas come from—the kind that break the mold and change how we see the world? As a sociologist, this has long been an interest of mine. …

Mapping Big Thinkers and Their Ideas

Viewing Clusters Over Time Provides Insights into Networks of Influence

By Tom Cohen | February 21, 2017

To understand where ideas come from and how they evolve over time, sociologist Randall Collins mapped the networks of 3,000 philosophers and mathematicians, a yeoman project that took him on …

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