What’s the Use of Beauty?
Edouard Manet’s notion of beauty changed starkly near the end of his life. Who determines what is or isn’t beautiful? And why are we so drawn to it?
Edouard Manet’s notion of beauty changed starkly near the end of his life. Who determines what is or isn’t beautiful? And why are we so drawn to it?
On meaningful coincidences and why unscientific beliefs can actually be entirely rational
On the link between insanity and creativity and how the art of turn-of-the-century mentally ill asylum patients became the basis of contemporary art, from Duchamp to Twombly to Cattelan.
How can you go about finding out ‘who you really are’ if the whole idea is a cultural fabrication?
On how our brains and bodies find pleasure in poetry.
On what is lost when we spend our lives trying to avoid feeling alone.
An interview with James Harris—author of Hume: An Intellectual Biography—on misconceptions, skepticism, and Humean lessons.
Engaging in behavior antithetical to a given goal can increase the chances of eventually achieving it.
What happens to the mind when the body looks its best?
Does speaking in a second language make you a more moral person?