The Lamp Room
A good life
Questions about meaning and a life worth living: happiness, death, purpose and the self.
Do Stoics suppress emotions? What they actually did
The Stoics did not aim at feeling nothing. They sorted feelings by whether a mistaken judgment sits inside them, and trained the judgment, not the reflex.
Why must we imagine Sisyphus happy? Camus explained
Camus ends his essay by asking us to imagine Sisyphus happy. What he meant by the absurd, the three ways of answering it and what is still questioned.
Epicurus on death: why it is nothing to us
Epicurus said death is nothing to us. His argument, why he thought it frees us from fear, and the reply that death can still harm.
The experience machine: would you plug in?
Nozick asked whether you would plug into a machine that gives only pleasant experiences. What the case tests, and how people answer.
Is nihilism depressing? What philosophers say
Nihilism says life has no built-in meaning. Philosophers disagree on whether that has to hurt: some found horror in it, others found freedom.