Issue 34 - December 2021/February 2022

New Philosopher

For curious people

New Philosopher1 min read
Truth
Since time immemorial, humans have held honesty aloft as a virtue, with Truth as the ultimate good. This is hardly surprising; after all, what society could survive long without Truth as its backbone? Greek orator Aeschines claimed that “Truth is str
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New Philosopher
Zan Boag Antonia Case Carlos Egan, Aida Novoa Nigel Warburton Mariana Alessandri, Marina Benjamin, Antonia Case, Tom Chatfield, Myisha Cherry, André Dao, Timothy Levine, DBC Pierre, Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, Regina Rini, Patrick Stokes, Nigel Warbur
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Online At
newphilosopher.com is an online portal for exploring philosophical ideas on ways to live a more fulfilling life. Read the articles, join in discussions, watch free online documentaries and plan your trip to the next festival near you. A cloud passe
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New Philosopher Back Issues
Missing any New Philosopher back issues? Get your copy of one of the back issues still in stock, from ‘Health’ to ‘Space’ to ‘Power’. Back issues delivered worldwide, with free shipping to Australia. Some back issues are sold out (issues 1-6, 12,
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Magazine
“New Philosopher is one of the best things happening.” “It utterly blew me away.” “New Philosopher has given me hope for the future of this country’s media landscape and for the public discussion emanating from it.” “I feel like I have been waiting
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Contributors
DBC Pierre won the Booker Prize for his debut novel Vernon God Little, which was also awarded the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2003 – the first time the two awards had been granted to the same book. Pierre is also the author of Ludmilla’s Broken En
New Philosopher2 min readSocial Science
The Killer At The Door
In his 1797 essay On A Supposed Right To Lie From Benevolent Motives, Immanuel Kant makes the notorious claim that lying is always wrong, even to prevent a murder. Suppose, says Kant, someone appears on your doorstep intent on killing your friend. Yo
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Cats Are Cats Are Cats Are...
In recent years, universities have been caught in an ongoing technological arms race against their own students – or at least those who submit plagiarised assignments. As software has become more adept at catching students who copy from online source
New Philosopher2 min read
Killing Truth
It is a truth universally acknowledged that we now live in a post-truth world. Indeed, it may be the last thing we can all agree on. For though we may agree that truth is dead, there is no such consensus about the killer. Was it social media? Or the
New Philosopher2 min readPhilosophy
When History Stopped
At the height of Stalinism, you would have been hard-pressed to find a Russian history book that referred to the role of a man named Leon Trotsky during the Bolshevik Revolution. Under Hitler, reading about the intellectual and cultural achievements
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Arbus And Bosnins
The inhabitants of a certain remote island are divided into two hereditary castes. To an outsider the members of these two castes look entirely alike. But those in one caste, the Arbus, always tell the truth; those in the other, the Bosnins, always t
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The Truth Hurts
Consider a few of the things I did during the 24 hours before beginning to write this article. I watched an hour-long episode of a TV drama my friends had recommended, long after it became clear it wasn’t one for me. I spent twenty minutes replying b
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Beating The Polygraph
When the now notorious British nanny Louise Woodward was accused of shaking a baby to death in Newton, Massachusetts, she not only told the jury she was innocent; she turned to the polygraph to ‘prove’ it. In the late 1990s, eight-month-old Matthew E
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Good Cop, Pragmatist About the Nature of Truth Cop
Author/illustrator: Corey Mohler, Existential Comics. For more comics visit existentialcomics.com ■
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Can Brains Be Trusted?
The 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer had some very curious ideas about the body shapes of animals. To Schopenhauer, influenced by a mix of Kant, Plato, and classical Indian thought, the entire visible (‘phenomenal’) world of indivi
New Philosopher2 min readSocial Science
From The Cradle To The Grave
Lying is a common social phenomenon. It occurs regularly in various social contexts for a multitude of purposes. For children, there are two types of lies that are of great importance during their socialisation. One type is the lies that violate mora

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