How to write a Hollywood blockbuster, with Aristotle’s Poetics | Aeon Essays
Today, the ancient Greek storyteller would be winning Oscars. To learn how, turn to the Poetics,...
Why a sculptor pivoted from gallery installations to big-box stores design | Aeon Videos
How the US architect and artist James Wines ‘put art where you least expect to find...
Psychotherapy is meant to help. But what about when it harms? | Aeon Essays
Some psychotherapeutic approaches are not only ineffective, they’re actively harmful. We’re now starting to identify them...
Spectacular fractal patterns emerge when electricity meets a wooden surface | Aeon Videos
An electric circuit, a salt solution and a wooden board demonstrate how electricity ignites, in this...
Günther Anders, a forgotten prophet for the 21st century? | Aeon Essays
From the ashes of the Second World War, Günther Anders forecast a new catastrophe: technology would...
How a verbal paradox shattered the notion of total certainty in mathematics | Aeon Videos
How Kurt Gödel used the paradox ‘This statement cannot be proved’ to shatter the notion of...
How the planet became the prime political entity of our century | Aeon Essays
How did the planet replace the nation-state to become the prime political object of the 21st...
When clinging to old hopes gets in the way of healing and growth | Aeon Essays
Hope is usually seen as a positive agent of change that spares us from pain. But...
A tender poem doubles as a guide to sitting comfortably in one’s own company | Aeon Videos
‘You are such an interesting conversation.’ Pádraig Ó Tuama’s tender poem is a guide to being...
How Wittgenstein might ‘solve’ both philosophy and quantum physics | Aeon Essays
Metaphysical debates in quantum physics don’t get at ‘truth’ – they’re nothing but a form of...
How a God-fearing Jewish woman found atheism – and bacon – in her later years | Aeon Videos
The Jewish woman who turned away from God thanks to ‘the Google’, finding atheism – and...
The Black Panthers fed more hungry kids than the state of California | Aeon Essays
It wasn’t all young men and guns: the Black Panther Party’s programs fed more hungry kids...
Before he leaves to go to war, Artem, 18, says goodbye to the man who raised him | Aeon Videos
‘Make sure you come back alive’: the last days at home with his grandfather before Artem,...
After Jacques Derrida, what’s next for French philosophy? | Aeon Essays
A golden generation of French philosophers dismantled truth and other traditional ideas. What next for their...
A mindbending trip that summons the forgotten women of surrealism | Aeon Videos
The feminist academic who heard the call of the forgotten women of surrealism and went on...
Human exceptionalism is a danger to all, human and nonhuman | Aeon Essays
In a tight spot, you’d probably intuit that a human life outweighs an animal’s. There are...
To see the Universe more clearly, think in terms of processes, not objects | Aeon Videos
View the Universe in terms of processes, not objects, and you’ll see improvements in science, public...
Life in early cities: on neighbourhoods and energised crowding | Aeon Essays
To understand why early cities thrived, look not to the temples of kings but to their...
How machine learning can help historians decode ancient inscriptions | Aeon Videos
How the deep neural network that can restore, date and place ancient texts is working to...
How we could end child hunger by making different choices | Aeon Essays
Last year 200 million children did not get enough to eat, yet it would be cheap...
Love is both wonderful and a dangerous evolutionary trick | Aeon Essays
Love is both a wonderful thing and a cunning evolutionary trick to control us. A dangerous...
What an ancient Turkish city looks like from the perspective of its stray dogs | Aeon Videos
Street dogs in the ancient Turkish city of Kars roam free, fight and and occasionally join...
We need to stop thinking about sex when it comes to reproduction | Aeon Essays
Why we need to stop thinking about parents, offspring and sex when we try to understand...
A son of China’s former one-child policy remembers the sibling he never had | Aeon Videos
The story of China’s one-child policy is told by felt puppets with fabricated memories in this...
In these dark times, the virtue we need is hopeful pessimism | Aeon Essays
We must keep the flame of pessimism burning: it is a virtue for our deeply troubled...
Ceramic designs spin to life in a tactile meditation on the art of pottery | Aeon Videos
In the hands of a ceramicist-animator, pottery is a cyclical, elemental art form, deeply connected to...
A short biography of human excrement and its value | Aeon Essays
Our excrement is a natural, renewable and sustainable resource – if only we can overcome our...
A harrowing account of a 1970 ‘leadership seminar’ spotlights self-help’s dark side | Aeon Videos
Unearthed audio recalls how a 1970 ‘leadership seminar’ descended into depravity, and why its participants went...
Why we should remember Alan Turing as a philosopher | Aeon Essays
Alan Turing was a pioneer of machine learning, whose work continues to shape the crucial question:...
For Ruskin, words couldn’t capture nature’s palette. So here it is in black and white | Aeon Videos
The art critic John Ruskin believed words couldn’t capture nature’s beautiful palette. So here it is...
The idea of primitive communism is as seductive as it is wrong | Aeon Essays
Marx’s idea that societies were naturally egalitarian and communal before farming is widely influential and quite...
Wry animations expose the gap between anxious aspiration and real life | Aeon Videos
A man scaling a house of cards; a porcupine surrounded by balloons – wry animations on...
Why are women philosophers often erased from collective memory? | Aeon Essays
The history of ideas still struggles to remember the names of notable women philosophers. Mary Hesse...
If you want decolonisation go to the economics of Samir Amin | Aeon Essays
If you really want decolonisation, go beyond cultural criticism to the deep structural insights of economist...
Does the artist’s intention matter, or is it indeed all in the eye of the beholder? | Aeon Videos
Does the artist’s intention matter, or is it indeed all in the eye of the beholder?...
Truth is real and philosophers must return their attention to it | Aeon Essays
For a century, the idea of truth has been deflated, becoming terrain from which philosophers fled....
Alone on a small island in Belgrade, a father grieves his daughter in quiet solitude | Aeon Videos
Time seems to stand still on a small island in Belgrade where a father lives alone,...
Nature writing should strive for clarity not sentimentality | Aeon Essays
Too many nature writers descend into poetic self-absorption instead of the sharp-eyed realism the natural world...
From mental image to sketch – how memories and emotions conjure up a face | Aeon Videos
What would a sketch of your partner, or your twin, or you look like if drawn by...
A dissenting view on the origins of the US’s Right wing | Aeon Essays
You likely think of the American West as deeply conservative and rural. Yet history shows this...
Bad puns, regrettable costumes, and other joys of collecting kitschy album art | Aeon Videos
A collector of vintage album art on savouring all things kitschy and campy, and his hunt...
The place of empty space in the literary imagination | Aeon Essays
When a writer stares down a blank page, the whole of literature stares back. Why, then,...
In a Mongolian wind burial, a body falls on land before getting swept up to the heavens | Aeon Videos
A hand-painted animation of the Mongolian wind burial tradition, in which a body gets swept up...
Why evolution is not a tree of life but a fuzzy network | Aeon Essays
Classic evolutionary theory holds that species separate over time. But it’s fuzzier than that – now...
When Paradise, California burned, its teens became instant climate refugees | Aeon Videos
When Paradise, California burned, its teens became instant climate refugees. How do they rebuild their lives...
Why virtue signalling is not just a vice, but an evolved tool | Aeon Essays
Proclaiming one’s own goodness is deeply annoying. Yet signalling theory explains why it’s a peculiarly powerful...
How might neuroergonomics help us deal with mental overload? | Aeon Essays
As tasks mount up, our brain’s ability to juggle goes down. Neuroergonomic tactics can relieve the...
This is not an animation: the spectacular sight of magnets meeting a metallic liquid | Aeon Videos
The exquisite eye-candy of magnets meeting ferrofluid reveals an oft-hidden force that is still mysterious to...
Corruption has shaped history. Why do we still ignore it? | Aeon Essays
Corruption is a truly global crisis and the wealth addiction that feeds it is hiding in...
A musician and a storyteller collaborate in a daily duet of words and music | Aeon Videos
A collaboration over 365 days between a musician and a storyteller results in a poignant reflection...