On history, economics, philosophy & the written word
Without philosophy, we argue endlessly about questions that have already been carefully considered by people far smarter than us.
Everything we know of Socrates comes filtered through Plato — a student who may have disagreed with his teacher far more than the dialogues suggest. This is the strange epistemological predicament at the heart of Western philosophy's founding document.
Continue readingDavid Hume pointed out that we have no logical basis for assuming the future will resemble the past. The sun has risen every day so far — but that is not a proof it will rise tomorrow. Two and a half centuries later, no one has satisfactorily answered him.
Continue readingThe Stoics divided the world into two categories: things within our control, and things outside it. Almost everything falls in the second category. Their entire ethical system follows from this simple distinction — and it holds up remarkably well two thousand years later.
Continue readingAct only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. The categorical imperative is one of the most ambitious ideas in moral philosophy — and one of the most difficult to apply. Which may be precisely the point.
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