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Hiding your ideas in plain sight
I recently read Shadi Bartsch‘s Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism. The book’s topic is fascinating to me: the ways that modern Chinese intellectuals have taken up...
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Habermas and a road not taken
Jürgen Habermas during a discussion in the Munich School of Philosophy. Photo by Wolfram Huke, CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence. It’s not often that a philosopher makes the top entry of Wikipedia’s “In the news”...
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The ancient Greeks were neither straight nor white
A few years ago, at the height of the Social Justice movement, I saw some people attempt a self-improvement project: go a year without reading any books by straight cis white men. I had significant...
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Self-proclaimed philosophers should have known better
A couple years ago I wrote a post arguing that we should not be defined by biological categories. I stand by that post today. It focused on transgender (and did so before I came out as gender-fluid...
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My last months with my father
This Friday, while I was taking my lunch break from work, my mother called to let me know that my father, Jayant Lele, had peacefully passed away. His health had been failing for a while. It got so bad...
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On “just asking questions” as a trans philosopher
Transgender identity raises a variety of interesting philosophical questions, and on an issue this controversial, the answers to those questions will necessarily be controversial too. I recently found...
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Why philosophy must cross boundaries
When I described philosophy in my “Why Philosophy?” interview, I hadn’t intended my description to be controversial. Only when Céline Leboeuf gave the interview a title did I realize that it is....
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Philosophy as psychedelic practice
David J. Blacker’s recent Deeper Learning with Psychedelics is a valuable attempt to think through the implications of psychedelics for philosophy and education. One passage in particular caught my...
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Is Asian philosophy footnotes to the Buddha?
Recently I wanted to explore a fascinating passage of the Daoist founder Zhuangzi, where the text recommends “sitting in oblivion” or “sitting and forgetting” (zuòwàng 坐忘). That passage bears striking...
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In memoriam: Alasdair MacIntyre
My photo of an elderly MacIntyre speaking in 2019 at “To What End?” Alasdair MacIntyre is dead. He had a very good run, better than many could dream of: he was 95 years old, and produced an output...
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Of offbeat philosophers
Writing advice often rightly asks authors: “When was the last time you wished a book was longer?” Well, now I can say: it was when I recently read Lawrence Harvey’s Offbeat Philosophers: Thinkers Who...
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In defence of bullshit Marxism
There’s been a lively discussion on Substack recently about a school of thought called analytical Marxism – which also likes to style itself as “no-bullshit Marxism”. This school (whose most prominent...
View Article“Why Philosophy?” interview
Céline Leboeuf just interviewed me for her “Why Philosophy?” newsletter, where I talk about philosophy and its role in my life. Have a look!
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You don’t have to drop philosophy for activism
The United States has always been a relentlessly pragmatic place, which doesn’t leave it much room for philosophy. Watching three Republican presidential candidates all take pot-shots at philosophy on...
View ArticleAgainst “Euro-American”
I noted before how there are two objections to the concept of “the West” or “Western”. I dealt previously with the objection that “the West” is meaningless, and the subpoint that it’s tied to...
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The West is neither white nor European
In the discourse of the United States today, everything is supposed to be about race. That particular American view infects any American discussion of the West. Overt racists like Lothrop Stoddard...
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Why the West is a real thing
When one studies Indian philosophy, or Asian philosophy in general, one is always faced with its other: a philosophical tradition with origins to the west of India, which, after the history of...
View ArticleIntegrators and operators at the APA
The Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association held its 2021 annual meeting last winter. It could not meet in person, of course. I forget where it was originally scheduled to meet, but...
View ArticleOn traditional wisdom and qualitative individualism
David Meskill asked an important question in response to my coming out as gender-fluid. He asks: I’m curious about how your personal transformation might relate to your interest in traditional wisdom....
View ArticleAmong the MacIntyreans
I’ve had the good fortune in the past couple years to attend multiple events held by the International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry (ISME). (To answer the question that is most often asked when I...
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