Karl Popper, the enemy of certainty, part 1: a rejection of empiricism
Liz Williams: How to believe: The effects of Karl Popper's work are still being felt today both within and beyond the philosophy of science
Iris Murdoch letters reveal love for close friend Philippa Foot
Lottery money secures collection of 250 letters written to fellow philosopher and one-time lover between 1940s and 1990s
Beyond our Kuhnian inheritance
Rebekah Higgitt: A recent lecture by Prof Greg Radick questions our scientific inheritance, through textbook histories of genetics and Thomas Kuhn's legacy
Thomas Kuhn: the man who changed the way the world looked at science
Fifty years ago, a book by Thomas Kuhn altered the way we look at the philosophy behind science, as well as introducing the much abused phrase 'paradigm shift', as John Naughton explains
Michael Stokes obituary
Scholar of ancient Greek literature and philosophy who changed our understanding of how Plato combined the two
Rousseau shows us that there is a way to break the chains – from within
Anne Deneys-Tunney: Through the concept of the 'general will', Rousseau believed that the alienation of man could transform itself into freedom
For Rousseau, man is born free, but kept free only by compassion
Guy Dammann: The Big Ideas: A fundamental tenet of Rousseau's The Social Contract is that it is human institutions that set mankind free
Why Marxism is on the rise again
Capitalism is in crisis across the globe – but what on earth is the alternative? Well, what about the musings of a certain 19th-century German philosopher? Yes, Karl Marx is going mainstream – and goodness knows where it will end
Philosophy: Back to big thinking
Editorial: There is a new more expansive mood taking shape in British philosophy, as borne out at Hay-on-Wye
Machiavelli’s The Prince, part two: humanism and the lessons of history
Nick Spencer: How to believe: The Prince follows humanist convention in commending virtuous rulers such as Marcus Aurelius – but subverts it by praising tyrants for their cruelty
What Debord can teach us about protest
Meghan Sutherland: The Big Ideas: The Society of the Spectacle urges us to rethink the relationship between activism, philosophy and pleasure in everyday life
Thomas Aquinas, part 5: what does it mean to be human?
Tina Beattie: How to believe: For Aquinas, the link between consciousness and matter is our desire for God as an expression of the life of the Trinity
Thomas Aquinas, part 4: how did the world begin?
Tina Beattie: How to believe: Aquinas's understanding of our origins combines Aristotelian and Platonic cosmologies with the biblical account of creation
What Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’ means to Americans
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen: The Big Ideas: Nietzschean high-school killers have obscured the interpretation of 'God is dead' as an opening, not a closing, of minds
The political message of Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’
Lesley Chamberlain: The Big Ideas: Nietzsche's declaration was not an atheist broadside in today's context, but an attack on the link between reason and divinity