Newsletter: August 2023

The point of climbing a mountain isn’t so much about reaching the summit as in what you bring down from it. Once you’ve caught a view of the limits of what’s possible you can explore the domain of the possible with greater freedom and understanding.

[Reflections] Something in the Way

Thinking well about the things that concern me requires intelligence. Understanding these concerns and what motivates them requires wisdom. Philosophy, to the extent that it is rightly called the love of wisdom, is essentially concerned with self-knowledge.

[Reflections] Why Does the History of Philosophy Matter to Philosophy?

By situating my own thinking within a broader historical tradition, I can see more clearly how my particular concerns and preoccupations are mine rather than just the objectively and timelessly important ones that all people with philosophical inclinations might turn themselves to.

[Starting Points] Do We Have Free Will?

The position that I have free will seems untenable for anyone less mighty than God. The position that I don’t have free will seems so far from being right that it isn’t even wrong.

[Reflections] Are We “Really Just” Animals?

I want to get clear on my place in a world that I inhabit with an animal body. That requires resisting attempts to inflate my significance beyond the animal. But it also requires resisting attempts to deflate it.

Newsletter: June 2021

Nāgārjuna laid much of the philosophical groundwork for Mahāyāna Buddhism and was foundational to the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy.