‘Good Enough’: 2023 Year in Review
Amidst a year filled with literary essays, the recent passing of philosopher John Lachs enables us to reflect deeply on mortality and why we should be contented with that which is good enough.
The Corridor Pragmatism
The Opposable Thumb at the End of the Imagination
Literary intellectuals investigate the power imagination gives us to pose unending questions about our world—viewing religion, philosophy, and science as literary genres full of metaphors.
Tender-Minded vs. Tough-Minded Thinkers
Philosopher William James‘ concept of tender-minded vs. tough-minded thinkers helps us better understand what most informs our personal beliefs.
An Ironist Must Learn to Listen Poetically
While the poet’s goal is to put imaginative notions into another person’s head, ironists instead seek to change themselves.
On the Something There Is
Poets, like pragmatists, possess a unique ability to sit with uncertainties and doubts. For them, neither walls nor metaphors are ever complete.
Why We Won’t Ever Arrive at Truth
A defense of Charles Sanders Peirce and William James against the charge that their asymptotic approaches to truth and hope are juvenile.
The Town Square
Your Job and Cancer Are Nothing: Part II
As a recently laid-off academic becomes more immersed in a sangha, he tries to reconcile his newfound zazen practice with his western background.
Tribes and Tribulations
This Is Technopoly
Embedded into every tool is an ideological bias, and unless we continually re-evaluate new technologies, we may end up within a technopoly.
Rortian Liberalism and the Problem of Truth
In defending liberalism, the philosopher Richard Rorty argues that there is no difference—in practice—between aiming at justification and aiming at something more called truth.
American Democracy and Its Broken Bargaining Tables
American politics is in peril. Now is the time to replace our broken bargaining tables with more deliberative democracy.
Could the COVID Pandemic Spark a Cash Benefits Revolution?
For low-income families, the move toward direct, broad cash benefits might prove to have a long-lasting impact once the COVID pandemic ends.
Trust in an Age of Reactionaries and Revolutionaries
Rather than view recent political failings as flaws inherent to liberalism, we might be better served by focusing on the decline in trust.
This Emotional Life
‘The School of Life’ Preaches Pessimism over Romanticism
‘The School of Life’ is on a crusade to avail us of our emotional ignorance. Philosopher Alain De Botton seeks to remedy the shortcomings of contemporary education systems and the institutions that have failed to instruct us in how to approach the big questions in life.
Wilderness Lost
Sages and Stoics
‘God Is a Question’: An Atheist’s Invitation to Intellectual Humility
William Irwin seeks to quell bad faith arguments and encourage greater acceptance of the uncertainty so endemic to life’s big questions.
