Aeon Magazine

Believing and thinking

The separation of church and state has an unspoken psychological basis: we choose what we believe, but not what we think. Aeon audio explores the most profound and releva

The self-making world

Long mocked and misunderstood, Lamarck’s radical idea that organisms shape themselves and their world is making a comeback. Aeon audio explores the most profound and rele

In praise of the dilettante

A wayfaring cosmopolitan who never gets stuck, the dilettante is the right anti-hero for our hyper-specialised age. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ide

The physics of getting fired

Physics offered me a sense of order and purpose. But when life got messy I realised it had a much deeper insight to give. Aeon audio explores the most profound and releva

Love with nowhere to go

Grief is not only for the dead. When we are unable to honour other profound losses, we become strangers to ourselves. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant i

How to build real peace

From Colombia to Syria, I’ve seen that capitalist logic can’t help to rebuild postwar countries but cooperatives can. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant i

Traction!

Tribologists study friction: what happens when things rub together. It’s indispensable, from the wheel to the paths of stars. Aeon audio explores the most profound and re

Other people

Disconnection is at the heart of today’s crises. So my husband and I chose a radical and revealing remedy: living communally. Aeon audio explores the most profound and re

How intuitions work

Just as seeing a tree gives you reason to believe it’s there, sensing that a stranger is creepy gives you reason to walk away. Aeon audio explores the most profound and r

Horrible, unmanly, indispensable

Renaissance Italians saw the gun as the Devil’s work. But soon they embraced this unchivalrous – and necessary – weapon. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevan

How to be a (Roman) man

Cicero’s ideal of manly virtue stressed the performance of self-control and bravery, not boastful egotism and domination. Aeon audio explores the most profound and releva

The ladder of knowledge

What we claim as ‘true’ is not a ceiling we are forever failing to reach but something that changes as we climb toward it. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relev

Deskilling the body

We are, moment by moment, doing less sensing, navigating, remembering, walking, choosing, and attending. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told th

Is everything conscious?

If the question makes no sense to you, try spending some time with the principle of sufficient reason. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told thro

The ghetto on the lagoon

Sixteenth-century Venice wanted to expel its Jews but couldn’t do without them. Its compromise was the world’s first ghetto. Aeon audio explores the most profound and rel

How to assemble science

Humanity produces a staggering amount of new knowledge every day. The question is how to make sense of it all. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, t

A life in episodes

For a decade, I’ve posted episodes of my memoir to Facebook. My readers correct my understanding of my past. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, tol

Life on a hair trigger

A world of violence sustains itself through guns, poverty and other social ills, but also through the minds it creates. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant

Reason is more than a tool

If intelligence is merely optimisation then machines will outrun us. Kant tells us why human reason is so much more. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant id

Don’t use the ‘C-word’

A cancer diagnosis carries with it fear and upheaval. For many patients the cellular changes do not warrant the label. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant