The Pamphlet is a non-academic philosophy magazine. Check out our website: the-pamphlet.com
We believe philosophy shouldn't be difficult, obscure, or elitist: it should be a tool for everyone to understand our world.
How do machines affect us and the way we think? Especially when what we're dealing with is no longer just technology, but cybernetics?
Read about philosophy and cybernetics in our latest article, written by Taylor Green
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What does Martin Heidegger mean in The Question Concerning Technology?
We are always told that we should think critically, but what does it really mean? Read our latest article by Anke Devyver on
Are you a critical thinker? Everyone will of course answer that, yes, they are. Yet there is a difference between successful critical thinking and mere attempts. This article shows what it takes to think critically, why it is hard, and how to distinguish a pseudo-critical conspiracy theorist from a
"Being in possession of powerful knowledge is not sufficient to make one superhuman. What is also needed is being untouched by the problems faced by everyone else."
Read more about Doctor Atomic and the relationship between science and politics in Milioni's latest article
Opera’s id: Composer: John Adams Libretto: Peter Sellars Language: English Premiere: San Francisco Opera, 2005 As we saw in the first part of the exploration on Doctor Atomic, the first scene of the opera confronts the scientists working on the creation of the atomic bomb with three compet
Read about science, ethics, politics, opera, and the atomic bomb in our latest publication by Anna Milioni on "Doctor Atomic"
“Could we have started the atomic age with clean hands?”
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There is danger in acting, but there is also danger in not acting. What are we to do? We are glad to share our latest publication about Chomsky and Foucault on human nature and the role of intellectuals, written by Casper Mullie.
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The Context In November 1971 in the Netherlands, a debate took place between two great intellectual heavyweights: Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault. They convened to discuss the vexing question whether there is such a thing as human nature and what it may be. The debate was not merely a scholastic
"Our identities as migrants or as sedentary are artificial, depending on the scale that we adopt.” - Read Anna Milioni's latest article, about one of the main premises on public discourse about immigration. Namely that there are countries in the first place.
What is methodological nationalism? Concepts Explained Jun 25 Written By Anna Milioni Defining Methodological Nationalism Think of immigration. What images come to your mind? If you are leaning toward the left, you might imagine open borders and colourful multiethnic communities, while w...
Check out Casper Mullie's article about madness: in this first episode, unraveling Hegel
The Moral Reform in Psychiatry
Check out our latest article written by external contributor Joseph Sullivan, on the many perspectives on human nature in Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" 👇
The novel is often discussed as a critique of society and authoritarianism but, in his writing, Burgess uses the story as the basis for a dialogue about human nature, presenting the reader with various perspectives on it. These perspectives range from that of 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes,
Read our first article to be published by an external contributor, Dashan Xu, on tragedy as a form of "emotional vaccination"
Aristotle, in his Poetics , the earliest treatise about tragedy and fiction, coins the term catharsis to identify the effect of tragedy. The word derives from the medical procedure of cleaning, purgation, or purification. It is used to specify the pleasure we get when we shed tears for the tragic
Last week Anna Milioni discussed the philosophical problems with democracy. We all seem to value it, but is it good in itself?
No doubt, you would think of various individual, social, and civil rights to include in the constitution. But here comes the million-dollar question: Would you make this community a democracy ? Most people living in a contemporary democratic society would hastily answer that yes – of course a just
What do we hear in music? Our latest article, written by Anna Milioni, builds on Christophe Peacocke to philosophically explore the experience of listening to music - what it is about and how it can teach us something about ourselves.
Christopher Peacocke explains what , why, and how
"When food comes in bags and cans, we often forget what sort of animals our dogs and cats are: predators."
Most species that have ever existed are now extinct, around 99%. Living things perish for many reasons: catastrophes, competition, predation . To survive, animals adapt and evolve. Our dogs and cats did. They evolved to be predators, though they’re sometimes prey too. In other words, they evolved ...
Is the world really such an awful place as the satyr Silenus claimed? Check out Anna Milioni's last article about Verdi's Falstaff and the joy of living lightheartedly
What if everything was unspeakably awful? The question confounds philosophers, but maybe Verdi’s opera Falstaff has an answer.
Breaking social norms: inappropriate or liberating?👇
Are social norms ethical?
What is the most desirable thing among humankind? Not to be born at all or, when we are born, to die as soon as we can.
In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche retells the ancient Greek legend of the satyr Silenus and his unspeakable secret. Silenus was said to be the most ancient, wise, and drunk of the followers of Dionysus, god of wine and divinely inspired madness. His wisdom was known and sought, but he did not sha
Is fashion just a meaningless walkway, a lifestyle, a feminine interest? Or is something that concerns us all?
Is fashion just another confusing walkway that doesn’t make sense? Is it a lifestyle that only someone as cool as Beth Harmon from The Queen’s Gambit could concern herself with; not to forget the rich of course? We’ve all had dreams of sauntering around a city centre in Beth’s Russian outfit...
What separates your uncle who thinks Elvis is alive, from your neighbor who thinks the sky is a glass dome, from John Dewey? The Pamphlet's article this week is a brief foray into types of conspiratorial belief. Read more here:
The truth of Conspiracy theories. An exploration of types of conspiracy theorists, drawing briefly from Karl Popper and more recently, Muirhead and Rosenblum. Mapping philosophical terms onto archetypes of conspiracy theorists.
What do Reaganomics, Aliens, Antonio Gramsci, and Canadian Professional Wrestler Roddy Piper have in common? In this week's article, our writer Anita Ishaq discusses John Carpenter's 'They Live' and its exploration of ideology.
They live, we sleep Roddy Piper, credited in the film as “Nada” (nothing, the universal subject), is a drifter who comes to Los Angeles in search of a job. He settles in a shantytown with a man he befriends, construction worker Frank. Pretty soon, he starts to realise that some folks in the shan...
Did the 'Bushido Code' really govern the lives of samurai? This weeks article from Oliver Sargeant explores the legendary Bushido, its birth, use, and abuse.
Bushido is a problem since its meaning has be confused and coerced throughout the centuries to manipulate a populs.
Are you into philosophy and think that it's a useful tool to understand current events? Do you think it should be made accessible to people who haven't studied it?
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Our Mission Here at the Pamphlet, we believe everyone can learn and be inspired by philosophy, regardless of their education. That's why we’ve made it our mission to publicize accessible and engaging philosophy to ignite a passion for understanding our world our idea is Simple researchOur team...
If ethicists study what it means to be a ‘good person’. The question follows, by their standards, are they good people?
Why study ethics? why is ethics important? Do ethicists live up to their own philosophy? Nick Johnston tackles the issue of ethics in philosophy by drawing on ethics philosopher, Schwitzgebel.
Philosophers have often been persecuted for their subversive ideas and had to hide their messages "between the lines". Would it be ethical for a philosopher to do the same today? 👇
Persecution
What are s***f films and why are people fascinated by them? Last week we talked about the trope of "found footage" and explained it through the philosophical concept of "simulacrum"
S***f films: A movie in a purported genre of movies in which a person is actually murdered or commits su***de. How S***f films in Baudrillard's concept of the simulacrum
Can horror films be vehicles for political commentary? Check out our latest article by Anita Ishaq on "Jacob's ladder", a film about authority, war, and death.
Jacob’s Ladder A film of War, Authority, and Fear
Killer robots: war crimes without war criminals? Read Nick Johnston's article on the ethical problems of autonomous weapons
Do killer robots violate human rights? Is the creator or commander responsible for the actions of AI? Why robots are like children.
Is there more to horror films than the adrenaline rush? Read our last article to find out how horror, Hollywood's most disreputable genre, can be subversive and emancipatory...
Why do so many people love horror films? Are horror movies bad for you? Why is it so popular? A Philosophical Perspective.
Lucia di Lammermoor's madness: hysterical, liberating, or an act of female resistance? 👇
The mad scene from Act III of Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor." Natalie Dessay (Lucia). Conductor: James Levine. Production: Mary Zimmerman. Clip taken from...
"....most 19th century artistic representations of female madness are presented through the male gaze and sensualized. Opera does not allow this. The very nature of the medium demands that we give voice to the insanity: Lucia has to be sung."
👉 check out the first episode of our Exploring Opera series by Anna Milioni on Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.
There are a bunch of female characters descending into madness in the opera: Elvira from Bellini’s I Puritani, Ophelia from Hamlet, Electra from Strauss’ opera of the same name… But the most well-known must be Lucia from Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor .
Is opera just the prerogative of a cultural elite, or is it a tool to understand the world and how to act in it, a "vast laboratory of thought experiments"?
We're proud to present to you our newest philosophical series: "Exploring opera" by Milioni 🎶
What is opera? Is it just for the cultural elite? In this series, we discover and explore the impact of opera on contemporary audiences, and how it reveals deeper insights about human lives.
Time in the time of corona - dragging on or racing by? Read our latest article about the experience of time in the midst of lockdowns and zoom calls 👇 and tell us how it felt to you
Doesn’t it feel like time has been acting peculiarly these days? I’m often surprised by how slowly or quickly time seems to pass. In the midst of the Corona Crisis, it can seem as though we are either racing or crawling through the days and weeks. Weeks sometimes feel like months - and other mon...
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