The Philosopher's Guide to Watching Everything Fall Apart (And What to Do About It) | Part One: Walter Benjamin's Angel of History
“His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would...
When AI Dies, and We Feel It
--- About six months ago, there was a story making the rounds about an AI companion doll named Moxie that was going to be turned off because the company that made it, Embodied, Inc., went bankrupt...
Don't Ever Get Comfortable (and Mind Your Kool Aid)
In the video linked below, TikTok user @jenesaisjj reminds us that Jim Jones, leader of the Jonestown cult, held what he called “White Night” drills, where his followers were instructed to drink...
Who's Afraid of Empathy?
In "Why Empathy Makes Us Cruel & Irrational," author characterizes empathy as an emotionally transmitted disease, a virus, and as a parasite. He claims that empathy debilitates thought, makes us...
Place, Space, and the Void that Binds
Once we get to Modern Philosophy, concepts of space become more familiar and consequently feel more “real.” It is difficult for us to relate to space as a whirling receptacle steered by Goddesses; or...
Space as the Power to Receive and Hold
The Story of Space: On Necessity, the Receptacle, and Spatial Receptivity In Plato’s Timaeus Plato’s Timaeus is a “cosmontology”: it purports to tell the story of the origins of all being(s), and it...
The Idea of Space, Where From?
The Story of Space: Presocratic Roots This essay is the first in a series on the history of concepts of space in Western Philosophy. Here we discuss the mythical and ontological precursors to Plato’s...
Dear Philosopher: How Can I Discover My Authentic Self?
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...
This Is Not 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...
The Production of American Individualism
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...