The Big Questions
What is real, what can we know, what should we do, and what makes a life good.
For: anyone who has lain awake thinking about free will, death or fairness.
12readings
2.6 hoursof reading
3stages
2 quick reads · 5 reads · 5 deep dives
Not started
Stage 1
Start
Stage 2
Understand
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04ReadQuiz5 min
The Meaning Question
The meaning question.
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05ReadQuiz5 min
Existentialism: Freedom, Responsibility, and the Absurd
Existentialism: freedom, responsibility, the absurd.
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06ReadQuiz5 min
Philosophy of Mind: The Hard Problem of Consciousness
The hard problem of consciousness.
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07ReadQuiz5 min
Atheism, Agnosticism & Humanism, Fairly
Atheism, agnosticism and humanism, fairly.
Stage 3
Go deep
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08Deep diveQuiz22 min
Free Will: Do You Actually Choose?
Free will: the whole debate.
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09Deep diveQuiz24 min
Justice: From Plato to Rawls, Nozick and Sen
Justice: what we owe each other.
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10Deep diveQuiz25 min
Moral Philosophy, Seriously: The Four Big Theories and Where Each Breaks
The four great moral theories.
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11Deep diveQuiz28 min
The Good Life Across Traditions: Aristotle, Confucius, the Buddha and Epicurus
The good life across traditions.
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12Deep diveQuiz24 min
How Do We Know Anything? Hume, Popper, Kuhn and the Problem of Science
How do we know? Hume, Popper, Kuhn.
When you finish
the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (free, rigorous); Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy (short).
Beliefs and Meaning
The world's religions in their own words and in historians' words, and the experiences beneath them.