It is an obvious fact that needs to be repeated from time to time: philosophy is not at odds with life. Thinking is also a way of acting. The German Carolin Emcke (Mülheim an der Ruhr, 1967) has done both. As a reporter, between 1998 and 2014 she was in conflict zones, from Colombia to Afghanistan, from Kosovo to Iraq. As a philosopher, she had studied at the London School of Economics, at Harvard and in Frankfurt (with Axel Honneth), and has taught classes at Yale, among other places. For years she has been organizing discussion series in Berlin. And she writes essays. The latest one to reach us is What Is True (Arcàdia, in translation by Anna Soler Horta).