Welcome to 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology, an ever-growing set of original 1000-word essays on philosophical questions, figures, and arguments. We publish new essays frequently, so please check back for updates, and follow here and on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to receive email notifications of new essays.
Some of our most popular essays are in the categories of Ethics, Epistemology or Theory of Knowledge, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, and Philosophy of Race and Philosophy of Sex and Gender and we have many other essay categories listed below. New to philosophy? See our essay on Philosophy itself!
A teaching units page of links to select sets of essays has been developed to help create course modules on common topics in philosophy and ethics courses, as well as courses in other fields.
Select Recent Essays
Are We Animals? Animalism and Personal Identity by Kristin Seemuth Whaley
Ethics and Absolute Poverty: Peter Singer and Effective Altruism by Brandon Boesch
Formal Logic: Symbolizing Arguments in Sentential Logic by Thomas Metcalf
Moore’s Proof of an External World: Responding to External World Skepticism by Chris Ranalli
Principlism in Biomedical Ethics: Respect for Autonomy, Non-Maleficence, Beneficence, and Justice by G. M. Trujillo, Jr.
African American Existentialism: DuBois, Locke, Thurman, and King by Anthony Sean Neal
“Hell Is Other People”: Sartre on Personal Relationships by Kiki Berk
Free Speech by Mark Satta
Distributive Justice: How Should Resources be Allocated? By Dick Timmer and Tim Meijers
Pascal’s Wager: A Pragmatic Argument for Belief in God by Liz Jackson
Conspiracy Theories by Jared Millson
Epistemology, or Theory of Knowledge by Thomas Metcalf
What Is It To Love Someone? by Felipe Pereira
Philosophy by Thomas Metcalf
Feminism Part 3: The Dominance Approach by Chelsea Haramia
al-Ghazālī’s Dream Argument by John Ramsey
Epistemic Injustice by Huzeyfe Demirtas
Removing Confederate Monuments by Travis Timmerman
Sexual Orientation, Sex, and Gender by Raja Halwani
Hell and Universalism by A.G. Holdier
Defining Capitalism and Socialism and Arguments for Capitalism and Socialism by Thomas Metcalf
Aristotle’s Defense of Slavery by Dan Lowe
The African Ethic of Ubuntu by Thaddeus Metz
Reparations for Historic Injustice by Joseph Frigault
Attributes of God by Bailie Peterson
Hope by Michael Milona & Katie Stockdale
Responding to Morally Flawed Historical Philosophers and Philosophies by Victor Fabian Abundez-Guerra and Nathan Nobis
Philosophical Inquiry in Childhood by Jana Mohr Lone
How to Establish Social Order? Three Early Chinese Answers and Wu-Wei: Acting without Desire by Henrique Schneider
The Ontology of Race by Abiral Chitrakar Phnuyal
Mary Astell’s “A Serious Proposal to the Ladies” (1694) by Simone Webb
Dharma in Abhidharma Buddhism by Nicholaos Jones
Mengzi’s Moral Psychology, Part 1: The Four Moral Sprouts and Mengzi’s Moral Psychology, Part 2: The Cultivation Analogy by John Ramsey
Essay Categories
- Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
- African Philosophy
- Buddhist Philosophy
- Chinese Philosophy
- Ethics
- Epistemology, or Theory of Knowledge
- Historical Philosophy
- Islamic Philosophy
- Logic and Reasoning
- Metaphilosophy, or Philosophy of Philosophy
- Metaphysics
- Phenomenology and Existentialism
- Philosophy of Education
- Philosophy of Law
- Philosophy of Mind and Language
- Philosophy of Race
- Philosophy of Religion
- Philosophy of Science
- Philosophy of Sex and Gender
- Social and Political Philosophy
* New categories are added as the project expands.