Dear micro-philosophers,
A little over six months ago, I launched The Micro-University.
The original idea behind The Micro-University was to create an online philosophy school that offers affordable university level instruction for adult learners all around the world.
What has happened since then has been nothing short of incredible.
Our community has completed a 26-week seminar together on one of the most difficult philosophy books ever written — Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. Being and Time is the most important text in the modern existentialist tradition and completely changed European philosophy.
Every weekend, this incredible group of subscribers would meet with me to read and discuss the text in a seminar format (which means lots of open-ended talking and textual analysis).
This experience completely changed my life as both a content creator and educator.
It made me realize the power that we have through platforms like Substack to deliver life-changing educational experiences for adults learners — experiences that traditional institutions are failing to deliver or even offer.
The initial success of the Being and Time seminar inspired me to continue building out the curriculum of The Micro-University.
This led to a 10-week deep dive on Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil and an 8-Week Introduction to Philosophy course.
The recent completion of PHIL 1: Introduction To Philosophy was a major milestone for The Micro-University.
Every good philosophy program needs a solid introductory course to provide a foundation for future serious study and to fill in the gaps in education that come from learning philosophy on social media, or trying to remember an undergraduate course from years ago.
A lot of subscribers report feeling doubt and anxiety about their own philosophical knowledge and abilities because they don’t have a structured program to follow. You can’t really learn philosophy from random quotes or podcasts. At some point, people need a guided experience to solidify the information. That is what this course was designed to do.
With these foundational courses now completed, I have been working hard on developing The Micro-University.
I am incredibly excited to share some major announcements below about the future of this community.
1) Introduction To Philosophy Is Being Converted From Paid To Free
I am proud to announce that over the next few weeks, I will be converting this course which was originally reserved for paid subscribers only to a free course available to all of my subscribers.
The course will be accessible on my private Circle community where you will be able to discuss the course with others and share your thoughts as you go. All you need to do is set up a free account and join The Micro-University Circle Community.
This leads to my second announcement.
2) The Micro-University Is Moving To My Private Community On Circle
Although The Micro-University began on Substack, this platform is not really designed for course-deliver or community discussion.
The community chat feature on Substack is not great and people are often missing key announcements.
I wanted to try to use Substack differently by hosting courses directly on the platform, but it simply makes sense to move on to a platform designed specifically for building a thriving learning community.
Additionally, by moving The Micro-University to Circle, I will be able to clearly separate my newsletter, The Micro-Philosopher, from the courses I am offering. This will improve my newsletter experience for newsletter readers, and Circle will improve the course experience for course-takers.
It is a win-win overall.
Again, you can join The Micro-University for free by clicking the button below and you will have access to PHIL 1: Introduction To Philosophy.
(Future free content is planned for this space as I continue to build out my content library with your help)
I am actually developing a software that will eventually allow me to house everything on my own platform (more on that below).
3) Camus Seminar Is Starting This Saturday (October 17th)
I sent out a message about this last week, but I wanted to remind anyone who is interested that it is now time to start signing up for the upcoming 4-week seminar on The Myth of Sisyphus.
This is one of the coolest philosophy books ever written and it addresses some of the hardest and most serious philosophical questions a human being can ask, such as:
Does life have any meaning?
Where does it come from?
Why should we keep going when life seems absurd?
If you are interested in existentialism, the meaning of life, anxiety, suffering, life, death, freedom, agency, and morality, then this book is a must-read.
Anyone who joins the seminar will receive weekly reading guides and access to our live discussion. The seminar is available to paid-subscribers only for now. If you can’t afford the paid subscription but are interest in learning with me, I am happy to work with individuals on a case-by-case basis to make sure they aren’t left out.
![The Myth Of Sisyphus [New Seminar]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!HXNI!,w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F765c0d8d-97a7-45f2-b9c1-61698c57629e_886x890.png)
Make sure you buy a copy of The Myth of Sisyphus soon, since we start on Saturday!
4) The Future Of Online Philosophy Education
I am dedicated to building the future of online philosophy education.
The incredible experiences I have had in the last few months reading and discussing philosophy with my subscribers have convinced me that this is what I was meant to do here on Earth.
We are just getting started.
I want to give you a small preview of something I have been working on to give you an idea of the vision I have for The Micro-University.
I grew up loving video games, and one of my favorite games of all time was a game called Civilization. The point of the game was to build your own civilization over time and one of my favorite features in the game was the “technology tree”. It was basically a big map of the history of ideas and technology that you could research to advance your civilization. I have always dreamed about having something similar to this for philosophy. A way to visualize and keep track of your progress in learning philosophy.
So I decided to start building my own philosophy software that includes this as part of the student’s journey. Here is what the initial prototype looks like:
What you see here is the basic concept of a historical/chronological progress tracker for the history of philosophy.
The next update to The Micro-University will include the release of my own philosophy education software where students can not only take live and self-paced classes, but practice specific philosophical concepts and ideas and track their progress. Additionally, it will contain research features where you can fall down rabbit holes on the platform itself and learn new things about different topics and philosophers that you find interesting. Finally, it will also include a thriving community of likeminded individuals that you can learn with and talk to as you progress.
If you want to help me realize this vision, the best thing you can do is to start participating in the live courses that I will continue to offer every week. This really helps support my work and grow the community.
I can’t do any of this without you.
-Paul
Pre-order Now Available:
Six-Week Stoic: Master The Techniques Used By Marcus Aurelius To Develop Unshakeable Mental Discipline And Inner Freedom.
A guided reading and journaling program that is designed to help beginners apply the lessons of Stoicism to their ordinary life so that they can live with more mental clarity, freedom, and peace of mind.
Anyone who pre-orders before October 16th receives a 40% discount. This digital book will be sent directly to your inbox on October 16th.