- Stoicism's archnemesis Epicurus wasn't your typical hedonist. His recipe for the good life emphasised minimising pain rather than maximising pleasure. Living frugally and free from pain we could live cheerfully and in community with the greatest blessing of all—friends https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/epicurus-tetrapharmakos 123 comments philosophy
- Existential Nihilism (the belief that there's no meaning or purpose outside of humanity's self-delusions) emerged out of the decay of religious narratives in the face of science. Existentialism and Absurdism are two proposed solutions — self-created value and rebellion https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/nihilism-vs-existentialism-vs-absurdism 157 comments philosophy
- For a short period, Structuralism was the cutting edge of Continental Philosophy boasting names such as Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Foucault and Lacan as well as Jean Piaget. But its heyday (thanks to Derrida) was short-lived and it was soon overtaken by Post-Structuralism https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/what-is-structuralism-continental 11 comments philosophy
- The Medieval era's greatest philosopher Thomas Aquinas abandoned his masterpiece the Summa Theologica after a shattering ecstatic experience “I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all that I have written seems to me as so much straw.” https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/why-the-masterpiece-of-medieval-philosophy 24 comments philosophy
- Michel Foucault's theory of Power revolutionised our understanding of the concept. In his work, Power is not a top-down domination of the not-so-powerful by the powerful but an oceanic force that every interaction (from intimate lovers to tyrants and slaves) partakes of https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/power-michel-foucaults-groundbreaking 113 comments philosophy
- Empiricism — the philosophy of Locke, Berkeley and Hume that argued knowledge was derived only from sensory experience (against Descartes’s Rationalists) and provided the philosophical foundation for the scientific method https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/what-is-empiricism 21 comments philosophy
- The Postmodern philosopher whose book was the main inspiration for The Matrix trilogy hated the movies calling them hypocritical in a 2004 interview where he said “The Matrix is surely the kind of film about the matrix that the matrix would have been able to produce” https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/why-baudrillard-hated-the-matrix 127 comments philosophy
- Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries across the spectrum. This article introduces the thinking of Nietzsche and offers a way of understanding his philosophy https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/friedrich-nietzsche-the-long-version 74 comments philosophy
- Radical is a political term that's often used synonymously with extremist. But radical has a specific meaning — it applies to those who want to "radically" change the system whether that's a right-wing "drain of the swamp" or a left-wing Proletarian revolution https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/what-is-a-radical-the-political-archetype 62 comments philosophy
- In Thus Spoke Zarathustra Nietzsche presents his prophetic anti-hero "The Last Man" — a docile, domesticated, comfort-craving for whom everything requires "too much exertion". This he argues is humanity's most likely future if we continue as we are https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/comfort-is-the-enemy-nietzsches-last 240 comments philosophy
- Everything Everywhere All At Once doesn't just exhibit what Nihilism looks like in the internet age; it sees Nihilism as an intellectual mask hiding a more personal psychological crisis of roots and it suggests a revolutionary solution — spending time with family https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/a-cure-for-nihilism-everything-everywhere 229 comments philosophy
- The often misused buzzword Paradigm originated in extremely popular and controversial philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn's work; he defined the term in two core ways: firstly as a disciplinary matrix (similar to the concept of a worldview) and secondly as an exemplar https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/what-is-a-paradigm-thomas-kuhn 5 comments philosophy
- Happiness is an essentially nihilistic ideal — it is the best goal to follow when there is nothing else on the table. A meaningful life on the other hand can embrace more of life including struggles and suffering because it is oriented towards a higher ideal https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/why-happiness-is-nihilistic-and-shouldnt 141 comments philosophy
- In the work that inspired The Matrix movies, Baudrillard says we are already living inside a hyperreal simulation entirely walled off from reality. This simulation isn’t simply virtual as it is in The Matrix but penetrates every corner of our postmodern civilisation https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-jean-baudrillard 417 comments philosophy
- Stoicism's archnemesis Epicurus wasn't your typical hedonist. His recipe for the good life emphasised minimising pain rather than maximising pleasure. Living frugally and free from pain we could live cheerfully and in community with the greatest blessing of all—friends https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/epicurus-tetrapharmakos 247 comments philosophy
- Nietzsche's American Idol: in Nietzsche's Overman to his Death of God we can see the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson who "exercised a continuous influence stronger than that of any other writer on Nietzsche" and was “one of the prototypes of Zarathustra” https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/twin-souls-nietzsches-constant-love 27 comments philosophy
- de Chardin argued that Complexity is the "third infinity" — as fundamental as the infinitely large of astronomy and infinitely small of the quantum — and that humanity (with its development of the new mental realm "the noosphere") is the leading edge of evolution https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/why-humanity-is-special-de-chardin 293 comments philosophy
- The philosophy of Martin Heidegger who argued that the Technological mindset has destroyed our relationship to the world so that Nature is seen as so many resources to exploit. He presents an alternative: a poetic relationship to the world https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/the-life-and-philosophy-of-martin 196 comments philosophy
- Thomas Sowell argues political disagreements are not conflicts of interests but "conflicts of visions". The "Unconstrained" Utopians believe human nature is perfectible while the "Constrained" believe that humans are inherently (though not necessarily essentially) selfish and greedy https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/a-conflict-of-visions 480 comments philosophy
- Empiricism — the philosophy of Locke, Berkeley and Hume that argued knowledge was derived only from sensory experience (against Descartes’s Rationalists) and provided the philosophical foundation for the scientific method https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/what-is-empiricism 27 comments philosophy
- Nietzsche's Three Metamorphoses in Thus Spoke Zarathustra charts the process by which new values are birthed in times of nihilism. The camel follows some code of ethics but finding them insufficient (a crisis of nihilism) the lion rebels so that the child can create a new value system https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/how-to-become-an-ubermensch-nietzsches 5 comments philosophy
- The Pre-Socratic Heraclitus's philosophy is usually oversimplified as if he believed only in constant change/flux. Closer reading however reveals that he really held the same paradoxical position as Parmenides: everything is one and yet is also in constant flux https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/the-philosophers-philosopher-heraclitus 35 comments philosophy
- Nietzsche: the pettiness and infighting of the Ancient Greek gods liberated the Ancient Greeks from guilt — bad things happened not because of the fallibility of man (as with the Judaeo-Christian doctrine of Original Sin) but because of infighting among the gods https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/nietzsche-the-many-uses-of-the-gods 155 comments philosophy
- The Roman Socrates — Cato the Younger was a Roman senator and Stoic philosopher who “made a career out of purity” (inevitably making him Julius Caesar’s archnemesis) and was the embodiment of virtue for Seneca, Dante and George Washington https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/cato-the-younger 63 comments philosophy
- The Medieval era's greatest philosopher Thomas Aquinas abandoned his masterpiece the Summa Theologica after a shattering ecstatic experience “I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all that I have written seems to me as so much straw.” https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/aquinas-abandoned-masterpiece 499 comments philosophy
- Despite the distorted popular image of Thoreau as an apolitical and misanthropic hermit, he actively lived his philosophy — risking his neck helping slaves to freedom and pioneering an ethic of civil disobedience that both MLK and Gandhi cited as a major influence https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/american-diogenes-henry-david-thoreaus 161 comments philosophy
- Despite the gulf between Analytic and Continental philosophy today, their respective founders — Gottlob Frege and Edmund Husserl — were active correspondents and had similar visions of pioneering more rigorous programs of philosophy https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/analytic-vs-continental-philosophy 18 comments philosophy
- For a brief period, Structuralism was the cutting edge of Continental Philosophy boasting names such as Levi-Strauss, Barthes and Lacan as well as Jean Piaget. But its heyday didn’t last long and it was quickly overtaken by Post-Structuralism https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/what-is-structuralism-continental 7 comments philosophy
- Humanity Isn't Cancerous; We're Bacterial https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/humanity-isnt-cancerous-were-bacterial?s=r 259 comments philosophy
- Happiness is an essentially nihilistic ideal — it is the best goal to follow when there is nothing else on the table. A meaningful life on the other hand can embrace more of life including challenges and suffering because it is oriented towards a higher ideal https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/16b06be1-518c-42f7-ae5c-acfc52dfc323 17 comments philosophy
- Ecstasis (ecstasy) and Catharsis are two paths to transformation — ecstasis provides a peak experience from which we see the bigger picture (flow, psychedelics, meditation) while catharsis is overcoming suffering — reaching Paradise through Hell à la Dante (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Frankl) https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/ecstasis-and-catharsis-the-makers 140 comments philosophy
- Despite the warped popular image of Thoreau as an apolitical and misanthropic hermit, he actively lived his philosophy —he risked his neck helping slaves to freedom and pioneered an ethic of civil disobedience that both Gandhi and MLK cited as a major influence https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/american-diogenes-henry-david-thoreaus 118 comments philosophy
- Carl Jung's concept of the Collective Unconscious is often misunderstood to be a collective hive consciousness but it was really a hypothesis about a mental counterpart to DNA by which instinctual structures of the mind are inherited https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/what-is-jungs-collective-unconscious 284 comments philosophy
- The Forgotten Father of Roman Stoicism — Cato the Younger was a Roman senator and Stoic philosopher who “made a career out of purity” (inevitably making him Julius Caesar’s archnemesis) and was the embodiment of virtue for Seneca, Dante and George Washington https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/the-forgotten-father-of-roman-stoicism 172 comments philosophy
- The living philosophy of Diogenes: simplify — set aside status money and power, overcome your body’s need for comfort and the good life is in easy abundance. Also tolerate no intellectual bullshit and troll Plato whenever possible https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/the-living-philosophy-of-diogenes 223 comments philosophy
- Nietzsche vs Jung on the revaluation of all values — Nietzsche thought the individual could create values while Jung argued that new values emerge out of the unconscious and the individual is more of a midwife to new values than a creator https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/nietzsche-vs-jung-the-revaluation 203 comments philosophy
- Epicurus: the Tetrapharmakos and his potent influence on the writings of Nietzsche, Marx and Thomas Jefferson https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/epicuruss-4-part-recipe-for-happiness 55 comments philosophy
- The greatest philosopher of the Medieval era Thomas Aquinas abandoned his masterpiece the Summa Theologica after a shattering ecstatic experience “I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all that I have written seems to me as so much straw.” https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/why-the-masterpiece-of-medieval-philosophy 399 comments philosophy
- In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche distinguishes between three types of thinkers: the scholars, the pioneers and the revolutionaries https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/nietzsche-gangasrotagati-kurmagati-mandukagati 17 comments philosophy
- Shame vs. Guilt — shame is highly correlated with addiction, depression, suicide, bullying, aggression, violence and eating disorders; guilt is inversely correlated with all of these things https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/guilt-vs-shame 6 comments philosophy