Shows / Aeon Magazine
Aeon Magazine
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons. Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing…
Episodes
Aeon MagazineThe savage bites back
Rooted in Brazilian modernism, anthropophagy devours and transforms culture, subverting colonial fears of cannibalism. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThe people’s atheist
Jean Meslier, a rural French priest, argued that religion is designed to produce subjects who will automatically obey. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineBeyond Greece and Rome
A dramatic shift in perspective is producing a much bigger, broader and more exciting view of ‘the ancient world’. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineTransit of wonder
Every 122 years, Venus crosses the Sun as a black and fleeting teardrop, kindling the awe of all those who dare to know. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineLoitering towards war
While Vienna’s coffeehouses bred modernism, in Belgrade’s kafanas grew conspiracy and rage. Their clash consumed Europe. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThe looting of science fiction
Tech titans claim the genre inspired them. But all they’ve done is graft their politics onto stories of a better future. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineUnmothered
We are each a living story, written with those who raised us. But when my most loving co-author ghosted me, my story fractured. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineLore of the rings
Trees contain an archive – tales of planetary shifts, cosmic events, historical pivots – that we’re only just unlocking. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineHow to offset your brain
From confirmation bias to loss aversion, everyone suffers from cognitive biases. Skilfully targeted mindfulness can help. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon Magazine‘The emperor is far away’
Ming Dynasty China left us copious texts, but these veil the lives of the vast majority of its people from our view. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineSkill nostalgia
Is all the beekeeping, baking and leatherwork just escapist fantasy or the start of a radically human approach to work?. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineAbyss
The testimonies of Ukraine’s war widows reveal the mortal risk of love and the possibility of dying while alive: a black pain. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineThe anguish of choice
In the shattered aftermath of war, Sartre delivered a formidable lecture on freedom and meaning. Its urgency remains. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineIllegible benefits
The costs of transformative innovations are immediately clear: it’s the longterm gains that are hardest to understand. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThe measure of flourishing
Human prosperity depends on nature, but no global metric has captured this with precision. Enter the Nature Relationship Index. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineThe violence specialists
Every society depends on violence workers, but what makes young men take a job that risks their lives and harms others?. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineWho are the fire-tamers?
From remote farmhouses to oncology clinics, a secret world of French healers works in parallel with conventional medicine. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineNo one is self-made
The idea that success is deserved has great traction in the world. But Zhuangzi argues that it is a deeply flawed notion. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineTrauma creep
From a broken life to a broken nail, ‘trauma’ has been bleached by overuse. But it names something real – and must be reclaimed. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineWords, words, words
Strong resistance to AI among writers is understandable. But it obscures what we share with the machines: language itself. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineWhat is this rock?
Not natural, not quite unnatural, the strange new rocks of the Anthropocene stretch the boundaries of geology. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineTherapy for billionaires
As my grandfather’s money taught, wealth can be a poison. The rich must reckon with its costs to recover their humanity. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineA philosophy of home
The household is a community, as much as the state, and ancient philosophy had much more to say about it than we think. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThe no-human future
Terrorists and tech bros alike view accelerationism as a revolutionary weapon. Nick Land glimpsed something much darker. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThe joy of autism
Yes, we’re in a world of our own: for the autistic mind, it’s a place of intense curiosity, deep focus and sensory delight. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineWhat shape is the Earth?
The extraordinary challenge of determining the true shape of Earth reveals the deep value of measurement to scientific progress. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineArtist of sympathy and cruelty
Mozart’s genius lay in writing music of such power that he could draw his audience into morally wrenching predicaments. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineFlickering Enlightenment
Attacked by the Left and Right, the Enlightenment can only be saved through use of its greatest legacy: permanent critique. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineThe embattled witnesses
The UN’s special rapporteurs are experts charged with a singular mandate: to monitor the world’s worst human rights abuses. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineCan ecosystems malfunction?
We are told the natural world is ‘breaking down’. But forests don’t work like airplanes or human hearts. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant…
Aeon MagazineBeing small
Nobody quite recovers from being a child: the asymmetry of power between parents and children always leaves a trace. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineMake immigration boring
The fiercest political battle of our age needs less moral drama and more hard thinking about numbers and fair tradeoffs. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineMaritime China
Far from turning its back on the sea, the fate of Qing China was tied as much to tides and storms as to cavalry and walls. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineMathematics is out there
Sergiu Klainerman spent years proving that black holes won’t fly apart; and arguing that maths is not a human invention. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineGen Z but two centuries ago
A generation of young people with ‘full hearts in an empty world’ sought hope in the face of insurmountable malaise. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineRights require money
Talk as much as you like about human rights, nothing will change until the architecture of global finance is reformed. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineBeneath our human shallows
We need a new imagination for the whole Earth, linking the power of the deep planet with the vitality of the surface. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineChildren are apprentices
The emotional and practical skills of adulthood can only be learned from (appropriate) levels of discomfort and stress. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThe eye in your pocket
Things have jobs: pillows are made for comfort, scissors are sharp, and digital devices are made to track your every move. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineThe origins of Indians
Genetic studies support what historians have argued for decades: ancient India was a place of migration and mixture. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineEmbrace the edge!
Brilliance and kindness shine brightest when far from the comfortable centre. Even nature is more generative there too. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineReality emerges
Particles are nature’s smallest constituents, but that doesn’t mean they’re fundamental. So what is the Universe made of?. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineTo be is to participate
For Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, a person is not self-contained, but the outcome of a lifelong process of living with others: we before I. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineThe Ethiopian running secret
One school of training is highly personalised, technical and data-driven. The other is the one that wins marathons. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineHunting ‘Man the Hunter’
For a century, this theory of human origins has died and returned. To free it from limbo, we must disentangle its many meanings. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineThe Black executioner
Medieval artists depicted bodies as vehicles for politics and hierarchy. Repeated enough, these roles began to appear natural. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineWhite-collar sweatshops
How did law firms and other professional workplaces become places of such crushing and soulless work?. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant…
Aeon MagazineDoes reading do us any good?
Stripped of easy moralising, literature makes us relish the search for truth in an age when many believe truth to be dead. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineNo nature without fear
Aldo Leopold saw this in the eyes of a dying wolf: when we no longer fear nature, we are on the road to its destruction. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineJustice is geometric
Where centralised societies excel at extraction, African fractal systems allow for circulation, reciprocity and return. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineFuel for thought
A brain fit for the 21st century is one that understands – and respects – its own bioenergetic foundations. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant…
Aeon MagazineThe invention of the soul
Humans weren’t given souls by God or genes. We made them ourselves with language – turning sentience into something sacred. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineJoin the dots
Peering into the origins of our Universe, astronomers found something that shouldn’t be there: what are those little red dots?. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineYou’ve lived this life before
The mystical insight came to Nietzsche like a lightning flash: time eternally recurs – and life must be lived accordingly. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineThe sterilisation-seekers
In the story of eugenics, disabled people are often depicted as passive victims. But for some it seemed an opportunity. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazinePatterns without desires
The art expert is the fulcrum of all value and significance in the museum and auction world. Could AI supplant them?. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineLiving without my self
Our culture valorises the big, coherent self: reading Robert Musil helps me embrace the beauty of my no-self existence. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThe antibiotic trap
Easy access to desperately needed drugs has made India the global accelerant of our antimicrobial resistance crisis. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazinePlaying in flatland
Physicists believe a third class of particles – anyons – could exist, but only in 2D. What kind of existence is that?. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineWhen trauma becomes trope
Humanitarian journalism is a moral calling to document human suffering. But in practice, it’s an ethically murky undertaking. Aeon audio explores the most…