What can philosophy do when injustice becomes ordinary and public protest falls silent? This essay argues that philosophy must move beyond academic debate to become a practice of critical resistance. Drawing together Ambedkar, Maria Garcés, Achille Mbembe, Deleuze and Wittgenstein, it examines caste, settler colonialism, authoritarian nationalism and capitalism, insisting that genuine transformation requires dismantling the structures that normalise inequality rather than sup

What happens when loss alters the very world we inhabit? In this conversation, Matthew Ratcliffe and Kathleen Higgins discuss grief as an unfolding emotional journey marked by disrupted meaning and shifting possibilities that reshape how we experience ourselves, others, and the world. They consider the differences between grief and depression, examine why grief can feel inexpressible, how it transforms identity and meaning, and what philosophy can contribute to understanding

Rebekah Humphreys examines the moral significance of truly seeing animal suffering rather than merely looking past it. She argues that the Animal-Industrial Complex normalises immense suffering through invisibilisation, objectification and compartmentalisation. By framing "seeing" as a moral act of recognition, she challenges readers to confront their complicity, reconsider accepted norms, and engage in the political and ethical work of transforming human relationships with a

In this conversation, Samir Chopra invites us to think of anxiety not as a sign of failure or pathology, but as an indispensable part of being human. Drawing on Buddhist philosophy, psychoanalysis, existentialism, and critical theory, Chopra explores how anxiety reveals the fragility of the self and the contingency of the world, while also serving as a gateway to self-understanding, care, agency and even social critique.

Havi Carel explores the challenge of articulating and understanding suffering, focusing on illness as a deeply embodied and transformative experience. Drawing on phenomenology, she examines how illness profoundly reshapes a person's relationship to their body, identity and environment. Carel reveals how illness disrupts the taken-for-granted certainty of bodily existence, leading to 'bodily doubt'. This gives way to uncertainty, vulnerability and sometimes the collapse of age

Kaitlyn Creasy understands loneliness not as simple isolation but as a complex emotional response to unmet needs for recognition and connection. Drawing on philosophy and personal experience, she investigates the many forms loneliness can take and argues that loneliness can reveal hidden desires, neglected aspects of identity, and aspirations that depend on others' affirmation. Rather than a condition to escape, loneliness can serve as a source of self-understanding and growt

In "Escape from Freedom", Erich Fromm wrote about the tension between our needs for freedom and independence, on the one side, and for belonging and security, on the other. The work was first published more than eighty years ago and now is the right time to revisit it, not so much for the psychoanalytic theory put forward in it, as for the more universal insights into the social and political situation at the time, which in many ways parallel our own.

Grant Farred examines Martin Heidegger’s paradoxical claim that we do not know what thinking is, but can recognize when we are not thinking. Heidegger's claim is that thinking emerges through speaking, not prior to it. Moreover, thinking begins in negation and requires awareness of our failure to think. By unsettling everyday assumptions, Heidegger reframes thinking as an active, reflective practice that demands attentiveness to language and a conscious effort to avoid unthin

This essay explores Marx’s break from philosophy, arguing that his materialism emerges from a commitment to understanding and transforming real social life. Rejecting both idealism and traditional materialism, Marx develops a theory centered on practical, sensuous human activity embedded in historical social relations. By prioritizing lived reality over abstract thought, he moves beyond philosophy toward a revolutionary framework aimed at grasping and changing the conditions

Deric Carner frames art as an embodied practice rooted in touch, repetition, and material play rather than detached intellect. His chaotic studio becomes a site where forms emerge through intuition and experimentation. Rejecting rigid planning, he treats materials as active collaborators, allowing accidents and physical engagement to guide meaning. Art, for him, is not conceived fully in the mind but discovered through the body’s interaction with the world.

In this follow-up essay, Mary Peterson examines how legal aggression, online misogyny, and public relations battles shape contemporary responses to accusations of sexual misconduct. Drawing on high-profile cases and philosophical debates, she argues that the legal system often amplifies harm rather than healing. Restorative justice, she suggests, offers an alternative framework focused on accountability, community responsibility, and the repair of damaged lives.

Liam Gillick explores the inescapable entanglement of contemporary art and philosophy. Through the figures of two fictional artists — one claiming to escape theory, the other striving to inhabit it — he reveals a paradox: artists are always both inside and outside philosophical discourse. He shows how both remain caught within philosophy’s terrain. Contemporary art thrives in this tension, endlessly “becoming” - navigating between guiding theories and open creative terrain.