Print Edition

Audio Essays

Audio renditions of select essays

Can Materialism Explain the Mind?

Some philosophers believe materialism has now reached an insurmountable quandary in the question of consciousness.

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The Human Arts of Graceful Giving and Grateful Receiving

Expressing thanks comes from good manners and also accrues future benefits. But is there more to gratitude than attending to politeness and seeking reward?

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Wisdom in Pieces

Science, philosophy, and art have been blown apart, and our conversations have devolved into chaos. How do we begin to learn the art of disagreement?

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Pluralism in a Monoculture of Conformity

Despite the diversity of our countless creeds, colors, and cultures, our society has been subsumed into a monoculture of ersatz arts, entertainment, and consumerism. How can we recapture humanity’s once extraordinary individuality?

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The Egalitarian Objection to Liberal Education

Far from being elitist and aristocratic, the liberal arts can free the human soul in the pursuit of human flourishing and advance the cause of equality.

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Transcendence and TikTok

The Religious Concept of God’s Manifestation Has Devolved into Self-Manifestation on Social Media

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Other People's Truths

Reading Sacred Scripture in Secular Settings

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Resisting the Architecture of Apathy

The way societies driven by profit and production design and build lived environments breeds an apathy that, unchecked, can only lead to the dissolution of human communities as we’ve known them.

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What Pico Thought—and What It Wrought

Reflections on Pico della Mirandola’s “Oration on the Dignity of Man”

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The Sin of Cosmocide

For Jews and Muslims, killing a soul means killing all of humanity according to their own scriptures. Yet, adherents of both faiths persist in betraying God’s teaching.

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What Walking Can Do For Our Souls

The significance of walking in the Islamic tradition, both as a prelude to and as a part of prayer, provides the ground on which to explore the riches of rootedness as a divinely endowed gift unto human beings.

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Counting the Minutes

Productivity and the Well-Lived Day between Abū Ĥāmid al-Ghazālī and Benjamin Franklin

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What Islam Gave the Blues

The blues is neither African nor Islamic—rather, it’s an African American creation shaped by some of the most enduring contributions of West African Muslims to American culture.

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Courteous Exchange in an Age of Empire

Prevalent examples of courteous exchanges between differing viewpoints are sorely lacking today. Can Victorian poets, influenced by the Muslim East, show us a path to discovering our commonality?

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Where Islam and Nationalism Collide

Islam contains teachings that clearly argue against the most important elements of nationalism.

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