Philosophy on the Danube River
In the aftermath of the Yugoslavian Civil War, a local philosopher uses philosophical practice to inspire personal and communal action.
The Town Square
All the Lonely People: The Atomized Generation
We’re not only facing a crisis of loneliness but we’re atomized. Our systems seem designed to further undermine social fabric and place.
The Locking Spine
Eating crab is a fitting tradition for an Appalachian community dealing with the intergenerational trauma connected to the opioid crisis.
America Needs to Build Strong Towns, Not More Infrastructure
The key to fixing our cities, to creating Strong Towns, is to treat them like complex, emergent systems capable of iterative change.
Can Social Technologists Solve the Atomization Problem?
To address rising atomization and alienation, we must account for radical inadequacy and experiment with more totalizing communities.
Tribes and Tribulations
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.
Flourishing
It’s All a Bit Absurd
Amidst a pandemic, Albert Camus’ novel The Plague suggests that we can find courage, community, and hope while embracing the absurd.
The Power of One Idea
William James offers a way to evaluate the fruitfulness of ideas by tethering them to the common ground of lived experience.
Our Sacred-Scientific, Psychedelic Future
Fears halted research on psychotropic compounds in the 60s. The Second Psychedelic Renaissance is now validating their psychological benefits.
How Deconstructing Anxiety Makes Transcendence Possible
With the understanding that fear is the fundamental problem in being human, we have our starting point. To pursue this quest, we must fully deconstruct anxiety, reveal its origins and mechanism, and find its resolution.
‘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.
Religious Impulses
Natural Mysticism and Its Dangerous Allure
Natural mysticism focuses on awakening us from our ego-bound ordinary life to a universal oneness. But it comes with many dangers.
Wilderness Lost
Sages and Stoics
The Brain Can Be Rewired Through Meditation and Mindfulness
Neuroscience increasingly validates Buddhist practices, like meditation, which unlock the ability of the mind to change the brain.
