The Best Articles in Philosophy
The most useful articles and videos in Philosophy from around the web, curated by thought leaders and our community.
Refind focuses on timeless pieces and updates the list whenever new, must-read articles or videos are discovered.
Top 5 Philosophy Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Philosophy by Refind users in 2024 so far.
Videos
Watch a video to get a quick overview.
The problem with "positive thinking". #shorts
Illusionist Derren Brown believes that the centuries old philosophy of Stoicism may hold the key to a kind of happiness that is more grounded in reality.
What is life? | Nobel Prize-winner Paul Nurse
Nobel Prize-winning scientist Paul Nurse defines the 5 core principles of life.Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukT...
RESONANCE AND ALIENATION. TWO MODES OF EXPERIENCING TIME?
By Hartmut Rosa for TimeWorld 2019, the International congress on Time.https://timeworldevent.com/1/accueil/Hartmut Rosa is Professor of Sociology and Social...
16 Life-Changing Ideas You’ve Never Heard Of
George Mack is a writer, marketer and entrepreneur.If our mind is an operating system, ideas are the apps we install to give us a greater understanding of th...
A few short lessons from Stoicism for dealing with life
✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, m...
What is ...?
New to Philosophy? These articles make an excellent introduction.
Our innate ideas prevent us seeing what is innate in human nature
We have a great deal of trouble telling what is innate and what is learned in human nature, whether ideas or emotions
15 of the Best Philosophy Books for Beginners
From classic texts to modern philosophy books for beginners, these are the best philosophy books to fill your shelves with.
The hardest question ever asked: What is truth?
Scientists believe they have the answer, but philosophers prove them wrong.
«An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), David Hume argues that inductive logic is unjustified. Inductive logic is the process of making observations and then drawing larger conclusions from limited data»
What is philosophy?
Professor Jonardon Ganeri FBA explains the meanings and uses of philosophy, from the ancient world to the present day.
«To do philosophy nowadays is to attend to the ways things are by attending to the concepts according to which we understand them.»
Philosophy of Happiness
INTRO Here’s a short introduction to some of the most fascinating philosophical issues about happiness. We are going to look at three...
How to ...?
How to Live on 24 Hours a Day: Arnold Bennett on Living a Meaningful Life
Arnold Bennett’s How to Live on 24 Hours a Day explores a meaningful life by addressing the age-old question: how can we make the best use of our time?
«What you learn today becomes the scaffolding to solving tomorrow’s problem.»
How to Change a World: The Radical Russian Prince Turned Anarchist and Pioneering Scientist Peter Kropotkin’s Advice…
“Courage, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice, are as contagious as cowardice, submission, and panic.”
How to Beat Procrastination Like a Stoic Philosopher
Seven tactics from the ancient world that have stood the test of time
How to fulfil the need for transcendence after the death of God
The modern world is disenchanted. God remains dead. But our need for transcendence lives on. How should we fulfil it?
How to know who’s trustworthy
Knotty problems call for sound advice. Use philosophy to find the intellectually dependable amid the frauds and egotists
«As a virtue, intellectual benevolence involves patterns of emotion and thought, not just actions.»
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Philosophy on Refind.
A New Philosophy of Productivity
The problem is not with productivity in a general sense, but instead with a specific faulty definition that has taken hold in recent decades. Here’s what should replace it.
Why do we do things that are bad for us? The ancient philosophers had an answer
Plato, Socrates and Aristotle wrestled with the concept of akrasia –whether it’s possible to act against what you know to be good
Why We Need “Degrowth” ❧ Current Affairs
Leading philosopher Kohei Saito defends the controversial idea of “degrowth communism.”
Philosophical theories are like good stories: Margaret Macdonald
For Margaret Macdonald, philosophical theories are akin to stories, meant to enlarge certain aspects of human life
OpenAI's chatbot store is filling up with spam
When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced GPTs, custom chatbots powered by OpenAI's generative AI models, onstage at the company's first-ever developer
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Philosophy—all under 10 minutes.
11 Philosophical Razors to Simplify Your Life
A collection of eleven philosophical razors; principles that can simplify your life by getting rid of useless or unlikely explanations.
«Wittgenstein’s Ruler, the idea that judgements made by an unreliable source tell you more about the source than about the claim itself.»
4 practical life lessons from Taoism
Taoism (also written Daoism) is a religion, philosophy, and set of practices that arose in ancient China. Established by the semi-legendary Lao Tzu, and the slightly better accounted for Zhuangzi, its…
«Zhuangzi is making the important point that breaking out of your limited perspective can provide new insights and a better understanding of the world around you.»
Five Timeless Life Lessons from Seneca
Seneca was a Stoic philosopher in Ancient Rome. While his life lessons are 2000 years old, they are now more relevant than ever.
«To build wealth like a Stoic, spend less than you earn, and prioritize saving and investing. This doesn’t mean you should lead a life of severe frugality; simply find a balance.»
Actually, neuroscience suggests "the self" is real
There is a deep debate that has been going on for centuries in the world of science and philosophy, a debate that some might call a war. It revolves around the nature of consciousness and the self,…
«This deterministic worldview raises the question: If every action, emotion, or thought we experience is predetermined by a set sequence of causes and effects, where is the room for an independent entity called the “self” to truly exist»
These 14 Small Mindset Shifts Will Change Your Life
For the most part, we can’t change the world. We can’t change the fundamental facts of existence–like the fact that we’re going to die. We can’t change other people. Does that mean that everything is…
«one way to think about Stoicism itself then is as a collection of mindset shifts for the many situations that life seems to thrust us in.»
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Philosophy.
Is it possible to hold truly contradictory beliefs together?
We can all be inconsistent. Philosophy illuminates a bigger puzzle: how do we hold contradictory beliefs at the same time?
Since when is philosophy a branch of the self-help industry?
The discipline today finds itself precariously balanced between incomprehensible specialisation and cheap self-help
«Many people buy books that supply the illusion of thinking»
A Single Small Map Is Enough For A Lifetime
What if this bog-standard corner of England is actually full of adventure, nature, wildness, surprises, silence, perspective — if only I bothered to go out and look?
How Alan Watts re-imagined religion, desire and life itself
Alan Watts, for all his faults, was a wildly imaginative and provocative thinker who reimagined religion in a secular age
Is there life after death?
Is there an afterlife or is this the only life we get? Most think science says there is no afterlife. But this view, while common, is wrong.
«Most believe science says there is no afterlife. But this view, while common, is wrong.»
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Philosophy, including:
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Who are the thought leaders in Philosophy?
We follow dozens of thought leaders in Philosophy, including Tim Ferriss, Aeon+Psyche, PhilosophyFoundation, Philosophy Now, Five Books.
Missing a thought leader? Submit them here
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com
Who uses Refind?
450k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.
Is Refind free?
Yes, it’s free!
How can I sign up?
Head over to our homepage and sign up by email or with your Twitter or Google account.
Keep Learning
Learn something new, guided by experts. Deep Dives are carefully hand-curated series of time-tested articles and videos from around the web.
Get the big picture on your favorite topics.