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. If you are not yet a member, you can support my work by joining Medium…

Reconstructing Modern Stoicism From the Inside Out — What makes Stoicism so compelling in today’s world? Why does it endure as an ethical philosophy despite the fact that so few people subscribe to panentheism, the religious belief underpinning Stoicism? If we can answer questions like these, we’ll find the force from which Stoicism emerges. Ancient Stoicism is built…

When Theory is Grist to the Mill — Why do you believe what you believe? What’s the origin of your convictions? Is it an amalgam of your hopes and values, or is it simply a way of signaling your vitality and wielding your power? Recently a label has been bubbling around the internet — “luxury beliefs”. Trace the…

Does a Craving for General Explanations Limit Our Capacity to Think? — Every day we encounter beauty. I write this after noticing the silhouettes of geese gliding low in formation over the shimmering Thames river. Their reflections stream over the golden winks of the ripples, lit up by the early morning sun. What is beauty? It’s not a thing by itself. We’ll…

Why “Artificial Intelligence” is a Contradiction in Terms — Plato tells the story of a god, known as The Craftsman, who fashioned order from chaos. He had no inspiration to work with except the perfection of heaven and so he produced a copy of heaven. But no creation can come close to the real thing, and so the world…

Do Passion and Reason Really Conflict? — When we try to make sense of the world, its ravings, joys and torments, we begin to understand one thing. People don’t decide by reason. When we talk of gut feelings, passions and intuitions, we’re trying to put our finger on motivational forces that defy our full understanding. …

Rubens’s Adoration of the Magi is a noisy masterpiece that melds religion and politics — Peter-Paul Rubens’s gigantic painting loudly contradicts the folkloric silent night. This typically muscular painting by the Flemish master is deafening. The Holy Family greet a huge commotion when the Magi arrive to offer gifts to the divine king of Christian belief. The enormous entourage of camels, braying donkeys, war horses…

Ibn Sina’s “Proof of the Truthful” — Why is there something rather than nothing? It’s a question that we all ask many times in our lives. It’s often said that philosophy begins in wonder, and the child is the greatest philosopher because the child isn’t too afraid to ask, “why?” The ultimate question is “why anything?” It’s…

Data-Driven Giving is Logical, but is it Wise? — It feels good when you give to charity, doesn’t it? It’s different, though, from showing generosity to a friend. Few of us know or check where or how that money is being spent. Instead, your cash seems to be banked in some abstract realm we can vaguely describe as moral…