Thank you for writing this piece. It was encouraging to read such a perspective from someone with a PhD in philosophy, someone who has walked the halls of academia, yet who also sees so clearly the need to bring philosophy back into ordinary life. As someone who is completely uncredentialed and barely scraped through high school, it gives me hope that my own pursuit of personal philosophy is still meaningful. Thank you for that.
I’ve spent much of my adult life reading the “greats,” though not to master their systems or wear them as badges of knowledge. I read them as a way to wrestle with myself; my identity, my purpose, and the frameworks that either shape or enslave us. In that sense, I resonate with your description of micro-philosophy. I’ve always believed that everyone lives by a philosophy, whether or not they’re aware of it. I have often seen that people tend to surrender their thinking to cults of personality, ideological leaders, political tribes, or rigid belief systems. They inherit a philosophy rather than building one, and in doing so, often lose the agency to question and shape their own. It was this, and my own curiosity, coupled with personal experiences from my younger days, that has fueled my consideration of these issues.
Where you describe the “walls” of the university as barriers to philosophy, I would also add that the walls of institutions - religious, political, even cultural - have functioned in much the same way. They create a perception that philosophy is either elitist and inaccessible or, worse, something that only matters if stamped with institutional approval. Yet what you’ve written here reminds us of something more primal: that philosophy is not just an academic pursuit but a human one, as natural as dancing, as you put it. I love that analogy.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been using Substack as a personal workshop, almost like a kitchen, where I test, taste, and refine my own evolving philosophy. Writing has become a tool of focus for me, helping me to articulate and challenge my own beliefs. I write not as an expert, but as a man who refuses to give away his thinking to someone else’s system. My aim has never been to convince anyone of “the truth,” but to explore tensions, question assumptions, and invite others to do the same.
If you ever find the time, I would be deeply humbled if you could read some of what I’ve written, not for engagement or validation, but for the honest critique of someone who has lived on both the academic and personal sides of philosophy. My work is still raw, but it is sincere, and your perspective would be invaluable.
Thank you again for writing this. Your efforts to break down the walls around philosophy matter more than you may realize. Pieces like this give people like me, who lack formal standing but possess deep conviction, the courage to keep going.
Thanks so much for taking the time to write this comment, it has truly moved me. I feel so grateful to connect with people like you through Substack who understand what I am trying to accomplish here. Few things in life feel better than the feeling that one is understood by a complete stranger. Incredible!
I couldn't agree more about the extension of my argument to other institutions as well. That was a great addition. I also like the point that people "inherit" a philosophy, rather than build one and "surrender" their agency.
I am definitely excited to check out your Substack, consider me a subscriber!
Please find an introduction to a unique Philosopher & Artist who thoroughly examined at a profound depth level every proposition about the nature of Reality in all times and places.
His investigations began with his Philosophy 101 class at Columbia University - with major components in Art & Literature.
Among other things he points out that Doubt (of the Intrinsic Fullness of Being) is the all-pervasive mood at the root of the Western philosophical project.
It does not even begin to take into account the full spectrum of the human body-mind-complex as described here: http://www.integralworld.net/reynolds6.html The Seven Stages of Life
You raise some sharp points, but you sidestepped defining philosophy and just claimed everyone can think philosophically. Sure, we all have our own ways of perceiving the world, crafting fresh, intelligent ideas, but that’s not philosophical thinking; it’s just thinking.
Philosophical thinking demands an organized, methodological structure of inquiry, driven by restless skepticism, always unsatisfied with easy answers. It’s a relentless chase, not random musings. By this definition, I don’t think just anyone can do philosophy.
Ray, thanks for this. I find that your definition definitely represents a common conception of philosophy, and I also would agree that according to this definition it would be correct that not just anyone can do philosophy. But I personally find this too restrictive of a definition. Perhaps there is a difference between doing philosophy and doing it poorly. I would like for it to be possible for a child to think philosophically, albeit poorly. What do you think about the fact that a child wouldn't be able to think philosophically on the definition provided here?
I see the direction you are headed with micro philosophy in your well written discussion of its challenges.
Although I may not have such a micro philosophy in place for myself, I nevertheless continue to narrate my life experiences "About Zero", for example in my own substack with very interesting real life discoveries.
I am encouraged by your efforts to move forward as I have had my own start with Spinoza then later Derrida, Deleuze & Guattari and even Lacan all in a non academic setting except the former, Spinoza. Those days were joyful days for me only lacking a community to share with.
I am writing this comment to encourage you to continue to push forward as you have, as I, for one, believe a market should exist for you and your subscribers to come.
To write about the liberation of philosophy is one thing, to do so not from within that liberation...another.
I will ask you this and I ask this in many ways daily on multiple platforms in many methods of messaging:
Have you challenged the classics?
Have you created a coherent framework?
Do you see the issues with Aristotles Prime Mover or telos?
Plato's gleaming theory of forms, the rigid Universals?
Do you actively respond or engage with those who are tearing down the pillars of the classics, exposing the tyranny of language primordially, absorbing or surpassing Descartes or even redefining/transforming the Universals?
My point is that I read your work and there's nothing WRONG with it, I actually like what you are proposing. I am not classically trained and hold no philosophical degree and engaging with philosophy, creating my own framework has been invaluable.
But I some things are missing.
The entirety of this also ties directly to the challenge posed in your post introducing the article:
"I wanted to create a concept and corresponding system that empowers people to begin thinking about their lives philosophically without needing anything other than their pre-existing life experience, current cognitive capabilities, and a bit of courage."
Do you see the issues with where your list stops? What explicitly defines a/the FRAMEWORK? What must you wrestle with and, as is my preference, destabalize?
I like your work. I am all for the idea of accessibility...but we must be doing the work ourselves and be able to show the proof of that. Or point to people who are as proof of the ability to philosophize coherently outside of academia.
I pretty much agree with everything! There is a but.
I had this experience while getting my undergrad. I realized I wasn't being asked to write essay about my own ideas. I was told the undergraduate level is to explain the complex ideas of old philosophies. Graduate level work is to write a discussion between two philosophers. Finally the doctorate level and beyond is to explain your own ideas. That's a long time!
I agree with you that people have a background philosophy whether they're aware or not. Better to do it well!
As a young person I found stoic philosophy quite soothing. It was meant to help people live their actual lives.
So I agree with much of what you've said. A big question I've thought about is why study philosophy in college when you can get a "practical" degree that leads to money? You can then study philosophy as a leisure. Part of the answer is that philosophy and its study is a culture. You learn a lot by interacting with philosophers. There's a way they think, speak, etc. This is important if you're really serious about doing philosophy.
An important aspect of philosophy is how humbling it is. Of course I have my own ideas and want to express them clearly. I usually find a philosopher somewhere has articulated this well and there are many arguments against the view. You realize there's so much to think about. This is an aspect that's lost when doing solo philosophy.
I felt frustrated quite a bit while studying as I noticed with my peers. So many fields are about consensus. Philosophy is quite the opposite as we genuinely seek out counter arguments and frame debates this way. It's uncomfortable. You can get to a point where you want to be told "the answer."
What you're offering is highly valuable, but I don't see where people will be challenged and questioned. That's tough to do and a reason why I can see many people not practicing philosophy. Maybe that can be course #2!
I'm hoping you're right that the gap between philosophers and public philosophy is getting smaller with people talking directly to the public.
See how your teaching videos go and maybe do YouTube!
Great piece, Paul. Happy I read it. One piece of feedback (because you asked): this would stir the blood more if you called out specific examples of academics scoffing at philosophy for the common person. You don’t strike me as a stir-the-pot type of guy but it would be powerful to name the antagonists.
Paul,
Thank you for writing this piece. It was encouraging to read such a perspective from someone with a PhD in philosophy, someone who has walked the halls of academia, yet who also sees so clearly the need to bring philosophy back into ordinary life. As someone who is completely uncredentialed and barely scraped through high school, it gives me hope that my own pursuit of personal philosophy is still meaningful. Thank you for that.
I’ve spent much of my adult life reading the “greats,” though not to master their systems or wear them as badges of knowledge. I read them as a way to wrestle with myself; my identity, my purpose, and the frameworks that either shape or enslave us. In that sense, I resonate with your description of micro-philosophy. I’ve always believed that everyone lives by a philosophy, whether or not they’re aware of it. I have often seen that people tend to surrender their thinking to cults of personality, ideological leaders, political tribes, or rigid belief systems. They inherit a philosophy rather than building one, and in doing so, often lose the agency to question and shape their own. It was this, and my own curiosity, coupled with personal experiences from my younger days, that has fueled my consideration of these issues.
Where you describe the “walls” of the university as barriers to philosophy, I would also add that the walls of institutions - religious, political, even cultural - have functioned in much the same way. They create a perception that philosophy is either elitist and inaccessible or, worse, something that only matters if stamped with institutional approval. Yet what you’ve written here reminds us of something more primal: that philosophy is not just an academic pursuit but a human one, as natural as dancing, as you put it. I love that analogy.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been using Substack as a personal workshop, almost like a kitchen, where I test, taste, and refine my own evolving philosophy. Writing has become a tool of focus for me, helping me to articulate and challenge my own beliefs. I write not as an expert, but as a man who refuses to give away his thinking to someone else’s system. My aim has never been to convince anyone of “the truth,” but to explore tensions, question assumptions, and invite others to do the same.
If you ever find the time, I would be deeply humbled if you could read some of what I’ve written, not for engagement or validation, but for the honest critique of someone who has lived on both the academic and personal sides of philosophy. My work is still raw, but it is sincere, and your perspective would be invaluable.
Thank you again for writing this. Your efforts to break down the walls around philosophy matter more than you may realize. Pieces like this give people like me, who lack formal standing but possess deep conviction, the courage to keep going.
Thanks so much for taking the time to write this comment, it has truly moved me. I feel so grateful to connect with people like you through Substack who understand what I am trying to accomplish here. Few things in life feel better than the feeling that one is understood by a complete stranger. Incredible!
I couldn't agree more about the extension of my argument to other institutions as well. That was a great addition. I also like the point that people "inherit" a philosophy, rather than build one and "surrender" their agency.
I am definitely excited to check out your Substack, consider me a subscriber!
Please find an introduction to a unique Philosopher & Artist who thoroughly examined at a profound depth level every proposition about the nature of Reality in all times and places.
His investigations began with his Philosophy 101 class at Columbia University - with major components in Art & Literature.
Among other things he points out that Doubt (of the Intrinsic Fullness of Being) is the all-pervasive mood at the root of the Western philosophical project.
http://www.dabase.org/doubt.htm
That there is a deep-seated taboo against Higher (yogic) Knowledge & Realization
http://www.dabase.org/up-1-3.htm
That Narcissus rules to here
http://beezone.com/adida/narcissus.html
http://www.dabase.org/up-1-6.htm The Criticism That Cures the Heart
It fails to take into account the existential fact that "death rules to here"
http://www.easydeathbook.com/purpose.asp The Purpose of Death
http://beezone.com/latest/death_message.html
http://beezone.com/whats-new
http://adidaupclose.org/death_and_dying/index.html
It does not even begin to take into account the full spectrum of the human body-mind-complex as described here: http://www.integralworld.net/reynolds6.html The Seven Stages of Life
Reality As Indivisible Conscious Light http://www.integralworld.net/reynolds18.html
The World As Light Image Art
http://beezone.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/The-World-As-Light-Introduction-to-the-Art-of-Adi-Da-Samraj.pdf
http://beezone.com/current/mind_as_separate_self.html
You raise some sharp points, but you sidestepped defining philosophy and just claimed everyone can think philosophically. Sure, we all have our own ways of perceiving the world, crafting fresh, intelligent ideas, but that’s not philosophical thinking; it’s just thinking.
Philosophical thinking demands an organized, methodological structure of inquiry, driven by restless skepticism, always unsatisfied with easy answers. It’s a relentless chase, not random musings. By this definition, I don’t think just anyone can do philosophy.
Ray, thanks for this. I find that your definition definitely represents a common conception of philosophy, and I also would agree that according to this definition it would be correct that not just anyone can do philosophy. But I personally find this too restrictive of a definition. Perhaps there is a difference between doing philosophy and doing it poorly. I would like for it to be possible for a child to think philosophically, albeit poorly. What do you think about the fact that a child wouldn't be able to think philosophically on the definition provided here?
You're onto something, Paul.
Thanks Jesse. A lot of the ideas here are, in hindsight, an outgrowth of our podcast conversation.
Dear Paul,
I see the direction you are headed with micro philosophy in your well written discussion of its challenges.
Although I may not have such a micro philosophy in place for myself, I nevertheless continue to narrate my life experiences "About Zero", for example in my own substack with very interesting real life discoveries.
I am encouraged by your efforts to move forward as I have had my own start with Spinoza then later Derrida, Deleuze & Guattari and even Lacan all in a non academic setting except the former, Spinoza. Those days were joyful days for me only lacking a community to share with.
I am writing this comment to encourage you to continue to push forward as you have, as I, for one, believe a market should exist for you and your subscribers to come.
All the best, /s/
Thanks Stefan, I always appreciate your support. I hope that my carrying on can inspire you as well.
Paul,
You are missing the self as evidence.
To write about the liberation of philosophy is one thing, to do so not from within that liberation...another.
I will ask you this and I ask this in many ways daily on multiple platforms in many methods of messaging:
Have you challenged the classics?
Have you created a coherent framework?
Do you see the issues with Aristotles Prime Mover or telos?
Plato's gleaming theory of forms, the rigid Universals?
Do you actively respond or engage with those who are tearing down the pillars of the classics, exposing the tyranny of language primordially, absorbing or surpassing Descartes or even redefining/transforming the Universals?
My point is that I read your work and there's nothing WRONG with it, I actually like what you are proposing. I am not classically trained and hold no philosophical degree and engaging with philosophy, creating my own framework has been invaluable.
But I some things are missing.
The entirety of this also ties directly to the challenge posed in your post introducing the article:
"I wanted to create a concept and corresponding system that empowers people to begin thinking about their lives philosophically without needing anything other than their pre-existing life experience, current cognitive capabilities, and a bit of courage."
Do you see the issues with where your list stops? What explicitly defines a/the FRAMEWORK? What must you wrestle with and, as is my preference, destabalize?
I like your work. I am all for the idea of accessibility...but we must be doing the work ourselves and be able to show the proof of that. Or point to people who are as proof of the ability to philosophize coherently outside of academia.
I look forward to seeing where this goes.
Best Regards,
Aeon
I pretty much agree with everything! There is a but.
I had this experience while getting my undergrad. I realized I wasn't being asked to write essay about my own ideas. I was told the undergraduate level is to explain the complex ideas of old philosophies. Graduate level work is to write a discussion between two philosophers. Finally the doctorate level and beyond is to explain your own ideas. That's a long time!
I agree with you that people have a background philosophy whether they're aware or not. Better to do it well!
As a young person I found stoic philosophy quite soothing. It was meant to help people live their actual lives.
So I agree with much of what you've said. A big question I've thought about is why study philosophy in college when you can get a "practical" degree that leads to money? You can then study philosophy as a leisure. Part of the answer is that philosophy and its study is a culture. You learn a lot by interacting with philosophers. There's a way they think, speak, etc. This is important if you're really serious about doing philosophy.
An important aspect of philosophy is how humbling it is. Of course I have my own ideas and want to express them clearly. I usually find a philosopher somewhere has articulated this well and there are many arguments against the view. You realize there's so much to think about. This is an aspect that's lost when doing solo philosophy.
I felt frustrated quite a bit while studying as I noticed with my peers. So many fields are about consensus. Philosophy is quite the opposite as we genuinely seek out counter arguments and frame debates this way. It's uncomfortable. You can get to a point where you want to be told "the answer."
What you're offering is highly valuable, but I don't see where people will be challenged and questioned. That's tough to do and a reason why I can see many people not practicing philosophy. Maybe that can be course #2!
I'm hoping you're right that the gap between philosophers and public philosophy is getting smaller with people talking directly to the public.
See how your teaching videos go and maybe do YouTube!
Great piece, Paul. Happy I read it. One piece of feedback (because you asked): this would stir the blood more if you called out specific examples of academics scoffing at philosophy for the common person. You don’t strike me as a stir-the-pot type of guy but it would be powerful to name the antagonists.