Lucretius, part 4: things fall apart
Emma Woolerton: How to believe: A life too long lived is a misery in itself. When the body dies, the soul disperses as it is mortal like the world around us
Lucretius, part 3: chaos and order
Emma Woolerton: How to believe: The atomic swerve is a simple idea that explains both the existence of the world and our ability to act freely within it
When Harry Styles met Alain de Botton
Sam Leith: The One Direction singer and the philosopher like to chat about 'Plato, Aristotle, love and beauty'. So which school of philosophy does each of these big thinkers follow?
Emile Durkheim: religion – the very idea, part 6: do we need the sacred?
Gordon Lynch: How to believe: Modern societies are no longer tribes organised around a sacred vision but the sacred and the profane are still relevant
Emile Durkheim: religion – the very idea, part 5: humanity and the nation
Gordon Lynch: How to believe: The blending of nationalist and humanitarian moral sensibilities was not merely a quirk of Durkheim's personality
The Most Despised Science Book of 2012 is … worth reading
Mark Vernon: Philosophers that break scientistic taboos, such as Thomas Nagel with Mind and Cosmos, risk much, but we need them
New year’s resolutions: can you really change your life?
The conversation: Millions of resolutions will be made – and quickly broken – next week. Agony aunt Irma Kurtz and philosopher Jules Evans debate the art of self-improvement
Emile Durkheim: religion – the very idea, part 1: the analysis of moral life
Gordon Lynch: How to believe: Durkheim's work on the sacred offers a starting point for a public language for thinking about the moral basis for society
Robert Currie obituary
Other lives: Dedicated teacher, politics lecturer and scholar at Wadham College, Oxford
If massacres like Cromwell’s avert suffering, perhaps they can be justified
Andrew Brown: David Hume's justification of Wexford and Drogheda call to mind the reasons for the end of the second world war
Karl Popper, the enemy of certainty, part 5: the craving to be right
Liz Williams: How to believe: The knowledge and certainty claims that are common to so many modern ideologies run contrary to Popper's thinking
Ray Billington obituary
Maverick philosopher who fell in and out of love with God
Karl Popper, the enemy of certainty, part 3: rejecting politics as science
Liz Williams: Marxism, Popper claims, is analogous to the psychological theories of Adler and pseudo-sciences such as astrology
DJ O’Connor obituary
Philosopher who developed a distinctive view of truth
Karl Popper, the enemy of certainty, part 2: the virtue of refutation
Liz Williams: How to believe: Popper's philosophy of science was based on the principle that a theory cannot be scientific unless it is falsifiable