The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was, famously, not a fan of William Shakespeare. He wrote in 1946 that “Shakespeare's similes are, in the ordinary sense, bad.” But Wittgenstein’s opinion was not only one fuelled by aesthetic dislike. Professor of Philosophy William Day argues that Wittgenstein sees in Shakespeare a fellow explorer of skepticism, but one willing to travel down dark alleys that Wittgenstein himself sought to avoid. "What Wittgenstein covers his ears to may be just this silence, this nothing, that the Shakespearean tragic hero craves," writes Day. Tap here to read the full article.

We tend to assume action begins with deliberation: weighing options, reasoning, then choosing. But Chinese philosophy suggests something different: Daoist texts like the Zhuangzi describe agency without a reflective self at all, no detached rationalising, just spontaneous, effortless action in tune with nature. Philosopher of cognitive science Brian Bruya argues that as well as this being a more accurate account of how action actually feels., it also sits far more comfortably with recent cognitive science than the Western ideal of reasoned choice, which he traces back to mistakes originating with Aristotle. Read the full article here.

For centuries we treated technology as a tool, and now a new movement insists it is becoming the future of the human species itself. Transhumanists like Harari and Kurzweil predict the merger of humans and machines, even the rise of a “digital God.” But critics fear this proposed future, calling transhumanism "the world’s most dangerous idea”. Is the future one where technology is not merely a source of innovation but the basis for a new account of what it is to be human, or are claims of eternal life and new forms of intelligence just fanciful nonsense? Joining the debate are transhumanist pioneer Zoltan Istvan, physicist and consciousness researcher Àlex Gómez-Marín, philosopher of mind Susan Schneider, and Softmax co-founder Adam Goldstein. Tap the link now to watch the full debate:

Is the divide between politics and economics a mistake? In this studio interview, Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven traces the relationship between the two disciplines, and why they are fundamentally connected and should be treated as such. The way we perceive economic markets, for example, is a political choice. Tap here to watch "Economists don't understand the nature of power" now.

Most see 9/11 conspiracies as an aberration in American political life. But historian and author Andrew McKenzie-McHarg argues that there’s nothing surprising here. Through investigating the genealogy of conspiracy theories, he argues that we can come closer to understanding when to reject them as apocalyptic demonologies in secular garb and when to take them seriously as credible possibilities in criminal or journalistic investigations.

If the literate mind shaped the modern world, what kind of world will the post-literate mind create? The surge in literacy and the democratisation of knowledge provided by Gutenberg's printing press helped ignite the Enlightenment. 500 years later, the internet is initiating a new transformation. But critics claim that beneath the internet's triumph of access lies a crisis of thought. Reading is in free-fall, with OECD data show literacy stagnating across the developed world. Are the rise of digital media and the decline of literacy dangerous trends that threaten our politics, culture, and thought itself, or should we celebrate the internet as a new and radical extension of Gutenberg's dream of democratising the production and distribution of knowledge? Tap here to watch Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales @jimmy_wales, author and digital rights activist Cory Doctorow, and author Mary Harrington @moveincircles debate.

I took part in a panel this summer at @HTLGIFestival in Hay-on-Wye: "Has feminism limited women's freedom?" along with @kathleen_stock1, Minna Salami, and Lucy Jones, and ably chaired by Chine McDonald of Theos think-tank. Watch:

The winners of wars are the quickest to innovate, the fastest to reach technological milestones. And now this dynamic is driving the race in AI. Here, former British Intelligence officer Andy Owen argues that we must slow down technological progress; the race is not worth the risk.

When Einstein’s best friend died, he claimed that because the distinction between past present and future is an illusion, he wasn’t really dead. In this talk, physicist Avshalom Elitzur explores quantum physics to challenge the orthodoxy that time is a human illusion Tap here to watch "Physics has misunderstood time" now.

Morality could be holding us back from achieving peace. Every brutal war, execution, and revolution in history has been justified on moral grounds. Philosopher Hans-Georg Moeller argues that breaking the cycle requires something radical: suspending morality altogether and becoming amoral. Drawing on thinkers from Wittgenstein to Zhuangzi, Moeller makes the case that trying to be moral often causes more harm than it prevents. Tap here to read the full article.

Conscious beings such as ravens, dolphins and human beings stand in sharp contrast to mere things. They are something over and above their body and brain. Join philosopher Martine Nida-Rümelin as she argues for her distinctive subject-body dualism, which is not obscurantist but a demand for intellectual honesty.

Is evolution really just a blind, purposeless process, or is something more structured going on? Mathematical biologist Denis Noble points to the failure of the "infinite monkeys" theorem (the idea that monkeys typing forever would eventually produce Shakespeare) to argue that pure chance cannot build complexity. If that's true, we may be wrong to keep explaining life as blind, random selection. Tap here to watch the full debate, "The Not So Blind Watchmaker," with Samir Okasha and Eva Jablonka.

An MIT study found that using AI leaves us more ignorant, yet more certain of our own arguments, reducing our capacity to think even as it leaves us more convinced we are well informed. Here, researcher and author Minh-Hoang Nguyen argues this is a new kind of brain rot: a literal degradation of our ability to think, and a new form of intellectual cowardice.

We tend to think that liberal democracy, for all its flaws, is ultimately a just and functioning form of government. Curtis Yarvin @curtis_yarvin, here challenged by the IAI's Alexis Papazoglou, argues that we are wrong on both counts. Basing his ethics on a pre-liberal idea of human flourishing, Yarvin defends the morality of illiberal governments and moves through examples of the structural failings of democracies. Tap here to watch the discussion now.

Will different branches of feminism ever be able to agree? In this debate, social critic Minna Salami pushes back against Kathleen Stock and Mary Harrington’s argument that the conflict over how feminists define themselves is damaging for the movement as a whole. Join them alongside Lucy Jones in “Gender equality and the freedom trap”.

How well can we really tell a reasonable belief from a ridiculous one? Stephen Law, Director of Philosophy at The Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, argues once we're too invested to be wrong, we explain away every inconvenient fact.

The common assumption is that to win in politics, you need power, whether it's leading a party into government or organising mass protests loud enough to force change from outside. But historian Sophie Scott-Brown disagrees. In this interview, she argues that fragmented, seemingly disorganised fringe campaign groups have often achieved more than the institutions built to win. Drawing on the politics of the 1950s, she makes the case that small-scale grassroots movements were never going to win in the short term, but they can still be genuinely revolutionary. Tap here to watch the full interview.

What can amnesia tell us about how memories are stored? In this talk, Victoria Trumbull retells the story of patient HM to suggest that amnesia doesn’t destroy memories themselves, only the brain’s ability to recall them. She argues this helps prove her hypothesis that memories aren’t stored in the brain like files, but exist in time. Watch her full talk, “Memories are not stored in the brain,” here.

Is string theory doomed? Join Nobel prize-winning physicist Roger Penrose, renowned string theorist Brian Greene, groundbreaking scientist Tasneem Zehra Husain, and polymath mathematician Eric Weinstein to debate the cosmological theory.

In this article, philosopher Sam Shpall makes the radical case that the notion of "falling in love" isn't just an imprecise idea, but a hazardous one. Buried inside it is a forgotten concept called 'limerence': an involuntary, obsessive craving for reciprocation, distinct from romantic love.