A Summary Guide to Philosophical Taxonomy

Why bother? Mostly for efficiently organizing bookshelves and folders. To be clear, I don’t understand this sort of thing to hold any deep or critical significance: for me, it’s strictly the sort of thing we refer to in order to avoid organizational confusion. By my reckoning a fairly trivial all things considered so arguing about

Intro to Philosophy First

Kinda random but I’ve been reflecting on a typical conversation I run into online a lot in recent years which troubles me… A top-down analysis only works well if the top concepts can be codified into a coherent understanding of the bottom concepts. Example: Let’s suppose a dog is a domesticated carnivorous mammal that typically

A Diatribe Against Attacking Skepticism Using Sophomoric Criticisms

From what I gather after a couple years of mostly researching this one theme: skepticism has been understood as a means for cultivating insight, problem solving, addressing concerns, or developing skill… as well as avoiding action, creating contention, or otherwise drumming up obstacles to progress. Most of these perspectives are directly addressed by Sextus Empiricus.

In Defense of Skepticism

From a recent exchange with a friend: erist —Here’s an odd rant: criticisms for skepticism that supposes it’s self-defeating seem to depend on a categorical assumption about skepticism being within the domain of philosophical activity while simultaneously challenging the basis for and nature of philosophy. I’m bringing it up because I think I’ve figured out

On Dates from Ancient Greek History

Many reliable scholarly resource offer a variety of conflicting date ranges. It’s important to note the variation and corresponding accounts for the given dates. However, it is not important for students to associate a fixed range with the Stone Age unless context makes it necessary. For example, it might be important if the reason for

From A Note on Metaphilosophy by Morris Lazerowitz, 1970

“The word has a brief history. It was coined by me in 1940 so as to enable me to refer unambiguously to a special kind of investigation which Wittgenstein had described as one of the “heirs” of philosophy. The term ‘metaphilosophical’ first appeared in print in July 1942 in a review of C.J. Ducasse’s book

Appreciating the Vibe: A Note on Mood, Philosophy, and Translation

Enjoying the vibe of a person, place, or event can be a truly sublime experience. However vibing with your audience as a creator seems like an fairly recent invention for consideration in that authors from history didn’t have this concept and instead were more directly motivated by notions like fidelity to scholarship and offering meaningful