An Index of my Medium Articles — I’ve indexed my posts by topic below so you can dive into my writing without endlessly scrolling on my profile page. You can also read my most substantial posts on The Sophist, my Medium publication. The study of philosophy, culture and history can help you live a better life. Feel…

Understanding The Limits of Your Freedom — “Nothing pertains to human beings except what defines us as human.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.15. Autonomy is largely assumed in the West’s individualistic culture. A person is an individual unit of society — in contrast with many old and some current cultures where the family is the individual social…

The Foundation For A New Stoicism — “When someone consulted Epictetus about how he could persuade his brother to stop being ill-disposed towards him, he said: Philosophy doesn’t promise to secure any external good for man, since it would then be embarking on something that lies outside its proper subject matter. …

How Georges de La Tour’s allegorical vision resonates with our deepest intuitions — In the 1650s Louis XIII of France received a painting from a provincial artist hailing from Lorraine, at the eastern edge of the country. The King was so moved by the painting, described by one historian as being of “perfect taste”, he had all the other paintings removed from his…

The “Private Language Argument” has Profound Implications — What is the self? Try standing before a mirror and gaze into your own eyes and think for a moment. Think about what is going on inside your head. You’re thinking in silence, in your brain, about you. What comes to mind? You have a name, you look a certain…

“Belief is always most desired, is most urgently necessary, where will is lacking; for the will, as the passion of imperiousness, is the distinguishing charateristic of self-mastery and strength. […] The less someone is able to command, the more urgently he desires someone to command him, and command him strictly…

Human freedom is a matter of perspective — At every waking moment we are faced with countless choices. It’s an irony of being human that we must make choices — we have no choice but to choose. Even if we decided not to choose, then we are still choosing. Choice is rooted into our very being. To choose…

The Japanese concept of “Ma” can teach us something about nothing — The interval between musical notes. The space in a room or corridor, pregnant with history and possibility. The moment a ball stops still at the very apex of its vertical flight. The silent “beat” before the punchline of a perfectly told joke. …

Reason Takes Us To Uncomfortable Places — Peter Singer is a philosopher whose writing is as clear as his ideas are controversial. Most famous philosophers are controversial in one way or another, but very few of them write clearly. Singer is an outstanding communicator, his prose style is simple and lacks the thick verbiage and heavy-handed jargon…