Looking for Wisdom

Season three of our Looking for Wisdom course, where we're looking at the philosophy of work. This week: hunters and gatherers, Mencius, Aristotle and slavery.

Is philosophy the love of wisdom? Or is it, as some philosophers have suggested, the wisdom of love? And what do love and wisdom have to do with each other anyway?

What does it mean to say "I love you"? And how do these three little words change our sense of ourselves, our commitments, and our future?

Does love lift us up where we belong? Or is it a kind of madness? In this week's class, we plunge into Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus to find out.

In this week's class, we are getting philosophical about desire, and asking questions about the philosophy of sex. Happy reading!

What are the limits of human love? Can we love everyone? Or should we only focus on those closest to us? And what happens when our personal loves and commitments come into contact with impersonal questions of justice?

In this week's class, we are exploring Amazonian social philosophies of love and community, and how for social primates, community is fundamental to how we live and love.

Welcome to the first lesson in our Season 2 series, taking a global perspective on the philosophy of love.

The last few decades have seen a growth in the scientific study of wisdom. But what is the science of wisdom? And what gets left out of these accounts?

Philosophy is the love of wisdom. But throughout its history, philosophy has also been haunted by wisdom's opposite: foolishness. So what is the relationship between philosophy and foolishness?

For Mencius and Aristotle, wisdom involves the cultivation of virtues. But how do we do thi, and how do we build a society that supports this cultivation?

Wisdom is often seen as an intellectual virtue. But what role does the body have in developing and maintaining wisdom? In this class, we're looking at flesh and spirit, gut feelings, and why wisdom cannot ignore the body.