Paul Doolan tries to tell them apart. Movie director Ridley Scott is known for creating an authentic cinematic world within each of his films. The battle scenes in his newest blockbuster, Napoleon, ...

The most famous book by Plato did not win its fame by accident. Plato’s Republic has something to say to every reader, whether advanced in philosophy or a beginner. It has so many layers, and has been ...

Seán Radcliffe asks, has Plato’s Allegory of the Cave been warning us of social media for 2,400 years? The ‘Allegory of the Cave’ is a Socratic argument recorded by the Greek philosopher Plato, a ...

Musa Mumtaz meditates on two maverick medieval Muslim metaphysicians. Islam’s scriptural foundation, the Quran, unequivocally asserts as its core metaphysical tenet tawhid – the uncompromising and ...

Arianna Marchetti reflects on the limits of political freedom. Freedom “is my right to have my own opinion, my own conscience. Many can perfectly live without freedom, as the freedom of having ...

Oliver Waters asks, is retributive justice justified in a modern society? “When I woke up, I went on what the movie advertisements refer to as a ‘Roaring Rampage of Revenge’. I roared, and I rampaged, ...

Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’. What is life worth? Questioning the value of our existence has the utmost significance, but no response seems likely to fully ...

In The Exorcist films, and other theological horror stories, the Devil is the ultimate enemy within, penetrating the family and even the body of the possessed child. As philosophers George Lakoff and ...

Raymond Tallis wonders what the world is made from. There is a much-quoted passage near the opening of Richard Feynman’s famous Lectures on Physics (1963): “If in some cataclysm all of scientific ...

Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention. The idea of a cosmic purpose is one which many of us are familiar with from religion. What happens in this world, so the story goes, is ...

Dave Hangman on a crucial lawsuit taking place the day after tomorrow. “Mrs Portman, we regret to notify you that our company will not be paying the sum insured for your husband’s death,” the suited ...