Philosophical Dictionary

Aristotle said contemplation was the highest life. Hannah Arendt said modernity killed it and replaced action with endless labor. Now we're trapped working and consuming instead of thinking or truly acting. Her 1958 book The Human Condition warned us: we became jobholders, not citizens or thinkers.

In this article, we discuss the life and work of Karl Marx's closest collaborator and friend, Friedrich Engels, and the way his practical approach to economics informed Marx's views.

In this article, let's discuss 20th century thinker Walter Benjamin's insightful criticisms of technology as a means for creating fast-paced art, and its impact on art itself.

We discuss the life and work of Marxist feminist critical theorist Angela Davis. We offer a taste of her life's work as an activist philosopher.

Today we discuss the modern theory of race, its history, and the thinkers who are moving forward to inspire a community where we think about race differently and critically.

Learn how philosophers from ancient Persians to Marx and Nietzsche viewed intoxication. Learn about Herodotus's famous drunk-sober debate method, why Marx wrote Das Kapital during beer-soaked nights, and how thinkers like Huxley and Benjamin explored consciousness through psychedelics. Philosophy meets altered states.