Get Your Smart On
The Other affects us as if we were love-stricken, and we fall into the vortex of their activities in our shared world.
This piece explores the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about how our relationship to the world and to ourselves is shaped by our interactions with primordial others. "Primordial otherness"...
We need others in order to become ourselves, and Continental European Philosophy gives us the theory to underpin this intuition. But also, as Sartre wrote, hell is other people. What gives?
In my exploration of US-American individualism, one of my early realizations was that my own sense of my own individualism is permeated with post-World War II existentialist ideas of the invention of...
Epicurus’ tetrapharmakon, or remedies for being at peace, is comprised of four maxims, as follows: 1. Don’t Fear God Epicurus believed that whatever entity created the cosmos, it could not possibly...
I wrote the first version of this as a Medium post before ChatGPT, LLMs and AIs became the hype-thing it is today, just for the record. 😉
> But, I would argue that much of what actually characterizes everyday life — the creative moments arising out of artful improvisation on the spur of the moment — will still continue to be opaque to...
Broad strokes takes on German Idealism, Dialectics, the Racist Science of Craniology, Dialectical Materialism (Marxism), Women's Suffrage, Existential Angst and the birth of Existentialism
This piece was originally based on a thread of tweets that I wrote while viewing Travis Ross’ Youtube lecture entitled: Early 19th-Century Philosophy: German Idealism and its Reception. The sound...
Leaping-in, Leaping-ahead, and the importance of playing a supportive role in caring for others.
In the course of giving his account of intersubjectivity (or the Being-with others of Mitsein), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) comments on two kinds of concern for the other — a leaping in for and a...
Whereupon we finally answer the question. In less than 500 words.
You might already know this: Philosophy comes from two Greek words — love (philia) and wisdom (sophia) — that translate to “love of wisdom.” The first precept of wisdom is knowing that you don’t know...
Here is the rub. I would like to spend most all of my time writing about philosophy and feminist theory, but given that I was recently resigned from my job (you heard me right, I didn’t resign but...
My response to Elle Grffin's “Could AI make us wise?,” in The Elysian Substack, and a regurgitation. Skip to the regurgitation if you're short on time.
In a recent post at The Elysian Substack entitled “Could AI make us wise?,” Elle Grffin (@ellegriffin) suggests that training an AI to curate the best content for us, based on our values, could lead...
On getting to know thyself and self-authoring your life story. Or just get out of an identity rut.
Questioner: I've been feeling a bit lost lately. I've faced some hard challenges that make me question everything and I don’t know if my reactions and opinions are actually mine. I think that growing...
But you should insist on meaningful work anyways. A philosophical meditation involving the ideas of Hegel, Dostoyevsky, Graeber, and Camus.
The pivotal moment in G.W. Friedrich Hegel's Master/Slave dialectic occurs when a slave, engaged in the work of making things for the master's consumption, sees himself1 in those things and there...
Framing human problems philosophically could prove, well, enlightening.
Question: "Would you rather live paycheck to paycheck in a big lively city or comfortably paid in a remote and isolated village? I have the opportunity of working as a physiotherapist in a village...
US-American projections, intellectualism, and the power of unintended effects.
In the early 1990s, I became infatuated with something called French Feminism. Toril Moi's book Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Ty (1985) had introduced Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva, and...
Dogs in the History of Philosophy.
1. Dogs as Symbols of Virtue In Ancient Worlds Diogenes of Sinope (404 BC - 323 BC), a prominent figure in Greek philosophy and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy, famously used the dog as a...
Henri Bergson's Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
Imagine someone walking down a busy street engrossed in their smartphone, completely oblivious to their surroundings. Suddenly, they walk straight into a lamppost. The immediate, almost reflexive...
The following examples are taken from either historical or currently existing movements and initiatives. While they may not be flawless, they provide us with a tangible glimpse into what is already...
Toni Negri on the revolutionary potential of creative autonomy as a way out and forward.
In this engaging dialogue, Toni Negri explores his philosophical and political journey, spanning from his early engagement with Marxism and workerism (operaismo) to his later involvement with...
Funny quips from the annals of Philosophy.
While philosophers have a reputation for being as heavy 🏋️♂️ as they are deep 🌊, the following stories from the annals of Philosophy is evidence that philosophers can be pretty darn funny, not...
Here are seven reasons why we still care to study Hegel's Master/Slave Dialectic in the Phenomenology of Sprit, with a brief exegesis of the text.
Exegesis of “Self-Consciousness” and the Master/Slave Dialectic Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, first published in 1807, is a seminal work in German Idealism that charts the development of human...
Part Two of The Desire For Community series
Part One: The Desire for Community As is true of many of the stories that we tell ourselves, the narrative creates the reality in which that story makes sense and becomes truth. For example, my...