Unthinkable | The Irish Times

“It’s only recently that we thought animals should be treated with respect and dignity and not tormented.” Photograph: iStock

Can you really love a dog? and life’s other big questions

Unthinkable: You can do philosophy anywhere. Even while walking your dog

‘If God is set aside, all of Western thinking going back to Plato and Aristotle and the Church fathers who adapted their thinking to Christianity is also eliminated.’ File photograph: Will Burgess/Reuters

How to understand China: Step one, forget about God

Unthinkable: Despite very different religious traditions, the Irish and the Chinese are similar in their thinking, says Jerusha McCormack

If the self is located in the body, Richard Swinburne asks, where exactly can we find it? Photograph: iStock

How do you know you actually exist?

Unthinkable: Without a ‘soul’ there is no self, says philosopher Richard Swinburne

Awareness that we shall all perish one day is instinctively suppressed, or glossed over with religious belief in the everlasting. Photograph: iStock

How ditching religious faith can set you free

Unthinkable: We’ve a limited time on Earth. Accepting that fact can revolutionise society

In seeking esteem, do we pretend we’re something we’re not in order to get other people to admire us?

How can I distinguish between my needs and wants?

Unthinkable: Economist and philosopher Adam Smith encourages us to reflect on ‘how much is enough’

‘Judging that a certain course of action is irrational is always relative to a host of other contextual considerations’ Photograph: iStock

Why there will never be a cure for irrationality

Unthinkable: Justin E H Smith discusses technological utopianism, Slavoj Zizek and the role of comedy in philosophy

Pointing the finger: Shame is necessary, because it enforces essential social morals. But endless shame is emotional cruelty. Photograph: Getty Images

When is it okay to shame another person?

Unthinkable: Shame has a ‘Newtonian force’ for good or bad, says Prof Sally R Munt

‘Experienced change over clock time is like stepping over stones. If you run, each step crosses more stones.’ Photograph: Bryan O’Brien/The Irish Times

Why does time fly? Maybe you’re not paying enough attention

Unthinkable: There are number of plausible theories of time, says Sean Enda Power

Modern mindfulness ‘is complicit with a neoliberal ethos of self-responsibility that reinforces systems of oppression and injustice’.

Has mindfulness become just another wing of capitalism?

Unthinkable: Ronald E Purser warns against the rise of ethically neutral and self-absorbed spiritual practises

‘If you go from the Skelligs to the Giant’s Causeway, everything about the land has a mythological surface to it.’ Photograph: David Sleator

Ireland can manage without the church but can it do without myths?

Unthinkable: Mark Patrick Hederman makes the case for promoting ‘mythic intelligence’

Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines. ‘The prospect of being at the mercy of a future super-intelligence seems entirely realistic,’ says Malcolm Bull. Photograph: Reuters/Warner Bros

Why humans need mercy more than justice to survive

Unthinkable: When the robots take over you’d better hope they’re merciful, says author Malcolm Bull

‘There is a massive patriotic messaging around sports events’: U2 lead singer Bono shows the stars and stripes of the US flag during the 2002 Super Bowl halftime show. Win Mcnamee/Reuters

Should children be taught to be patriotic?

Unthinkable: There is merit in a virtuous patriotism but it can't be instilled through trickery or threats, says Randall Curren

The late John Moriarty. Andy O’Mahoney on an RTÉ radio programme in 1985 introduced him with the words: ‘My guest tonight is one of the most remarkable people that I’ve ever met in my entire life.’ Photograph: Don MacMonagle

The greatest Irish thinker you’ve never read? It could be this man

Unthinkable: The Kerry ‘eco-poet’ John Moriarty illuminates a better way for humanity, says Michael W Higgins

Aesthetic injustice?: Renée Zellweger in What/If, on Netflix

Can’t get Netflix? You may be suffering an aesthetic injustice

Unthinkable: Lack of cultural access is a serious wrong, says philosopher Rachel Fraser

‘Anger is a kind of madness; it blots out rational thought.’ File image: Lambert/Getty Images

Why you can’t be angry and rational at the same time

Unthinkable: The Stoic philosopher Seneca debunked the idea of ‘righteous anger’, his translator explains

Unlike both utilitarianism and rights-based theories, virtue theory assumes human beings and the planet Earth have intrinsic purpose, from which moral commandments flow.

Is virtue ethics making a comeback, 2,400 years after Aristotle?

Unthinkable: We must find ‘middle way’, says Ireland’s new young philosopher of the year

Iris Murdoch: ‘It’s been easy to dismiss Murdoch as a philosopher because she was such a brilliant novelist.’ Photograph: Getty

Why the world needs Iris Murdoch’s philosophy of ‘unselfing’

Centenary of author’s birth in Dublin is being used as an occasion to reclaim her moral vision

Siri Hustvedt: Philosopher or novelist? Photograph: Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images

Can a novel also be a work of philosophy?

Unthinkable: Literature allows us capture ‘weirdness’ of life, says Matthew McKeever

Donald Trump, a winner at the ballot box, but ‘the Stoics argued one cannot take pride in one’s life unless it is a virtuous life’. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Why be good when it seems like nasty guys finish first?

Unthinkable: Liars and cheats cannot ultimately fool themselves, says philosopher Vittorio Bufacchi

‘Whether there is free will is not the sort of thing we can tell by looking,’ says philosopher Michael Rush.

Do male and female brains differ? A philosophical response

There’s nothing in science that disproves the existence of free will, say Helen Beebee and Michael Rush

‘There is something new in our day – the way we can express invented identities without the requirement to stand by them.’ Photograph: Photothek/Getty Images

Is technology to blame for spread of ‘unjoined-up thinking’?

Social media ‘invites us to be so many people at once’, says UCC academic Fiachra Long

1
2
3
4
5
Next ›

Subscriber Only

Most Read in Culture

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Foreground photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty

De Niro and Pacino: ‘We are very close... We have known each other a long time’

Transformative vision would include a move away from large footprint in an expensive Dublin suburb. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

Things are grim at RTÉ, and they’re going to get grimmer

The site of the Soloheadbeg ambush: The ambush site is approximately 300m from Soloheadbeg quarry. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy

Tipperary, 1919: The woman who hid Dan Breen after Soloheadbeg ambush

Lupita Nyong’o: The Black Panther star is on a search for west Africa’s real-life warrior women Wednesday on C4

TV guide: 16 of the best shows to watch this week

Cork Jazz Festival: this year’s festival was organised without an overall director. Photograph: Daragh Mc Sweeney

Cork Jazz Festival fails to move with the times

A fishing boat worker rests while his boat is in port in Thailand. File photograph: Paula Bronstein/Getty

Thailand’s sea slaves: Shackled, whipped and beheaded

Francis Brennan seems uncharacteristically unsure of himself

Francis Brennan’s cruise-ship show feels like a glorified infomercial

A laptop in Stormont’s parliament buildings in Belfast showing a live feed of the DUP leader Arlene Foster giving evidence to the RHI inquiry. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Burned: The story behind the North’s ‘cash-for-ash’ scandal

John Henry Newman: his Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864) is considered a classic among religious autobiographies. Photograph: The Print Collector/Getty

Declan Kiberd on John Henry Newman: Protholic or Cathestant?

On May 26th, 1981, the RUC searched UDA headquarters in Belfast, and discovered one Thompson sub-machine gun, six home-made Sten guns, a .45 revolver and 550 rounds of ammunition. UDA man Robert McDevitt was arrested, while its leader Andy Tyrie, above, was merely interviewed. Photograph: Alain Le Garsmeur/Getty Images

How the RUC protected the UDA

Real news has value

Sign In

Forgot Password?

Sign Out