Experimental psychology is providing concrete answers to some of the great philosophical debates about art and its meaning. By Ellen Winner.

A decade after the worst fighting overseas, five combat veterans put the Forever War and American civilian life into perspective. By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos.

Lightning can strike twice and people do call just when you’re thinking of them – but are such coincidences meaningful? By Cody Delistraty.

Could a 2,300-year-old Graeco-Roman philosophy be the key to a happy 21st-century life? By Massimo Pigliucci.

Heroes and Horses

“Language-games.” By Ian Ground.

If this is the last thing you ever read, it will be worth it. By Jordan Bates.

Modest Mouse

By Patrick West.

People who share dangerous ideas don’t necessarily believe them. By Adrienne LaFrance.

Discovering the infinite universe. By Lewis H. Lapham.

Wink wink. By Amelia Tait.

Constructing sets that look functional but are intentionally useless, an artist parodies the seamless illusion of images. By Sarah Bay Gachot.

Your ambitions to improve your life do not need to be confined by your personality. By Christian Jarrett.

Caroline McHugh

As legions of warriors and prisoners can attest, Stoicism is not grim resolve but a way to wrest happiness from adversity. By Lary Wallace.

“Aztec philosophy encourages us to question this received ‘Western’ wisdom about the good life – and to seriously consider the sobering notion that doing something worthwhile is more important than enjoying it.“ By Sebastian Purcell.

Martin Luther King Jr. (Final Sermon, Feb. 4, 1968)

Facebook is Sauron. It’s also your mom’s couch, a yoga-center bulletin board, a school bus, a television tuned to every channel. Twitter is Grub Street, a press scrum, the crowd in front of a bar. Reddit is a tin-foil hat and a sewer… By Jacob Mikanowskiin.

I am my things and my things are me. I don’t want to give them up: they are narrative prompts for the story of my life. By Lee Randall.