[Reflections] Does Philosophy Make Progress?

In technical terms, pretty much any PhD graduate leaves Plato in the dust. On the other hand, the Republic is a book I actually want to read.

[Starting Points] (What) Can We Learn from Literature?

How can you learn anything from a book full of events that, by the author’s own admission, are completely made up?

[Starting Points] Socrates and Oedipus: Parallel Lives

Both Socrates and Oedipus receive oracular answers that tell them who they are, and these obscure answers launch them on a quest of self-understanding.

Newsletter: August 2021

Building a syllabus, at its best, is also an act of love and a gift to those with whom it’s shared. Like a music mix, it’s constructed out of elements that I didn’t make myself but the assembly in uniquely my own.

Newsletter: July 2021

Anglophone philosophy in the last half-century has slowly pulled its head out of its own proverbial ass and it has done so in no small part thanks to the contribution of these four remarkable women.

Newsletter: June 2021

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

Newsletter: April 2021

UNESCO has marked the third Thursday in November as World Philosophy Day but it might have been more apt to set it for April Fools’ Day.

Newsletter: February 2021

Are philosophers also good lovers? Plato, ever the booster for philosophy, claims that philosophers are really the only true lovers.