Philosophy

Sir Julian Huxley examines the debates and mysteries that surround humanity's earliest moves towards mass society.

J.W.N. Watkins illustrates how the great individualist thinkers of the 17th century had a profound effect upon the development of modern Europe.

The philosophe may have laid the egg, but was the bird hatched of a different breed? Maurice Cranston discusses the intellectual origins and development of the French Revolution.

The legend of Mahatma Gandhi places his non-violent Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience, and Quit India movements at the heart of India’s independence. There's more to the story.

‘Complex marriage’, ‘male continence’ and the selection of the perfect partner were all themes propounded by a 19th-century cult in New York State. Clive Foss explores the influence of Plato’s Republic on John Humphrey Noyes and his Perfectionist movement.

The natural philosopher and scientist Robert Boyle was revered in his time for his pioneering enquiry into a wide range of natural phenomena.Yet within half a century of his death he was almost forgotten, overshadowed by his contemporary Isaac Newton. Michael Hunter explains why.

Lucy Wooding introduces a highly significant, but often much misunderstood, cultural force.

The popular image of Socrates as a man of immense moral integrity was largely the creation of his pupil Plato. If we examine evidence of his trial, argues Robin Waterfield, a different picture emerges, of a cunning politician opposed to Athenian democracy.

Dietrich Karsten was a Protestant pastor who opposed the Nazi regime in the 1930s but died for Hitler as a soldier in the war. His granddaughter, Lena Karsten, enlisted the help of film-maker Tony Wilson and historian Gabriel Fawcett to find his grave and tell his story. The result is a powerful feature documentary Confessions of a German Soldier. Lena Karsten gives an insight into what she discovered.

Clive Foss introduces the Kharijites, a radical sect from the first century of Islam based in southern Iraq and Iran, who adopted an extreme interpretation of the Koran, ruthless tactics and opposed hereditary political leadership. After causing centuries of problems to the caliphate, they survive in a quietist form in East Africa and Oman.