philosophy - Encouragement

About Me

...I'm writing things like "I am an award-winning teacher" and "I help students identify and use their resources" three or four times a week.

philosophy

On Machiavelli's "Letter to Vettori"

You must prepare to step into a different age when reading Machiavelli.

philosophy

Engineering Ethics and the Preface to Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil"

I feel like we live in an age where everyone reacts in blind panic if they sense their power is being challenged.

nietzsche

Nietzsche & Lawfulness: On the Opening of the Genealogy of Morals, Second Essay

I want to begin by placing Nietzsche's account of forgetting and memory in dialogue with a choice line from Plato.

philosophy

Shame, Power, and the Pinto: What I've Learned So Far in Engineering Ethics

Our present moment indulges images of cars in distress.

philosophy

On the Opening of Nietzsche's "On the Pathos of Truth"

"Art is more powerful than knowledge," Nietzsche declares, and part of me wants to scream

philosophy

On Compliments

...some of the most insidious, dogmatic ideologues are expert at presenting themselves as thoughtful, using the appearance of gentleness as a weapon.

philosophy

Franz Kafka, "The Top"

It's not just a maniac philosopher who believes "the understanding of any detail... [is] sufficient for the understanding of all things."

philosophy

On the first two sentences of Farabi's "The Philosophy of Aristotle"

Why read Farabi? This is just the opening of one of his works, and it is as thorough as one can get in terms of weighing ideas and their consequences.

philosophy

On Reading Closely

...what's really exciting about reading, what makes me addicted to good essays and difficult ideas, is formation.

philosophy

Introducing Plato's "Hipparchus"

Greed and shame brought me to Plato's "Hipparchus."

philosophy

Reading in Part: On Aristotle's Way of Writing

...the big mistake I've made in reading is paying attention to Aristotle's actual words.

philosophy

Meno as a "Mean" in Plato's "Meno"

Meno stands between Anytus' combination of rage and ignorance and Socrates' high-minded talk.

philosophy

Plato, "Meno," 86b

Fortunately, the soul is immortal. Because it is always learning, it despises ignorance.

philosophy

"Antigone," or the Construction of the Divine

The sacred is born of a denial which demands others suffer for telling the truth.

philosophy

Creon as Dictator and Our Desire for Order

Creon's fantasy is centered on who he's scared to be, as he doesn't want to feel like someone who failed to act when he had the chance.

philosophy

Antigone and Ismene Outside the Gates

Humans understood as rule-bearing, rule-bound creatures does not start with a notion of the "state" or "city," but with family itself.

philosophy

Philosophy and Addiction

...if a book doesn't help you become more aware of your own life, something is wrong.

philosophy

Three Thoughts from Epicurus' "Principal Doctrines"

Hedonism, the thesis that pleasure is the good, can be frightfully ignorant.

philosophy

What We Don't See: Xenophon, "Memorabilia" I.3.12-13 & Kyla Houbolt, "on the wing"

Perhaps, when you are virtuous, it shows throughout your being. You don't just stand for something, you are seen to be it.

philosophy

The Practicality of Parmenides' "On Nature"

You're right! If you back down, you don't just descend into error, you compound the error.

philosophy

José Ortega y Gasset on "Intellectual Effort"

We, however, must deal with those who say things like "math isn't real" and believe in ESP because they watched a YouTube video once.

philosophy

Immanuel Kant: "the possession of power inevitably corrupts reason's free judgment"

With the little power I've had, it's the mistakes I imagine I've made which recur in my thoughts.

philosophy

Kant and Jefferson on Enlightenment

Today I want to talk about a little bit of the rhetoric Kant and Jefferson use to advance Enlightenment ideals. Some scholars assume that because ideals of universal education and technological progress won out years ago, we have an assessment of their legacy ready at hand.

philosophy

A "genuine culture" for philosophy?

Currently reading Nietzsche's "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks," translated by Marianne Cowan. This passage about philosophy and "genuine culture" caught my eye. It invites immediate comparison between our age and the ages we imagine. My initial questions: What do we feel missing that we believe was in