Question Everything

When The Stone Reader (ISBN 978 1 63149 071 2)—a landmark collection of 133 essays from The New York Times’ award-winning philosophy series—first published, the world urgently needed insight and wisdom, and for many, the book served as a bulwark of reason against a rising tide of factless rhetoric, deepfakes and deception. Now, as we enter our third year of the pandemic and misinformation continues to run rampant, editors Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley contend that philosophy in the public sphere is more important than ever.

Featuring essays by philosophers as well as artists, actors and activists—from Ai Weiwei to Cate Blanchett and Elena Ferrante—Question Everything tackles the sweeping questions that have sprung from our moment, including: Is democracy possible? What is it like to be a woman? Should speech be free? Altogether, the essays collected here tell a story of truth-seeking in a time of doubt, shifting reality and change, taking us through the seeming end of the world—and beyond.