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A Philosopher’s Difference
Philosophers chase what matters and so neglect what doesn’t. Most people neglect what matters and so chase what doesn’t.
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The Musician Allegory
As a musician, to play out of tune and not realise it is one thing. But to realise that you are playing out of tune and to keep playing: that is absurd. Such a person is ridiculous. If you realise that you are playing out of tune, you stop playing. You don’t start playing again until you have tuned yourself up.
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The Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic
In Plato’s Republic, Socrates paints a strange picture. Imagine a cave, underground (as caves are), with no natural light. In this cave are people chained up and chained down; they can’t move a muscle, not even their heads from left to right, and they’ve been stuck like that forever. They’ve never known any different. They […]
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Cleverness and Wisdom
Cleverness does not correlate with wisdom. For many clever people have not even tried to be wise, and how wise is that?
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Reflections
I use the word ‘reflections’, and reflections is exactly the correct word. I reflect, philosophically, and give serious thought to my own thoughts. But these thoughts ought also to be a reflection of what is in you; they ought to show only what you already know but have forgotten.
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Healthy Cynicism
I’m not sure if Cynicism is healthy because I’m not sure what health is. But I do think that Cynicism has a healthy role to play: it is a healthy corrective to the nonsense of this world, the world that we have made for ourselves. My doubt serves as an introduction to a typically philosopher’s […]
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The Maxim Writer
The maxim writer: all wit but no substance. For all their craft, they vacillate and go against themselves. Would you choose to be one of them? And are they good guidance? But if I were to, I would do so in the spirit of Socrates and write only for the purposes of improvement, in myself and the reader. Then they are powerful things.
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Can Virtue Be Taught?
Why do the Cynics shout over the choir? Why do they so visibly show themselves walking the walk of the philosopher’s life? It is to teach us a lesson. What lesson? That virtue is all that really matters and everything else is a matter of indifference. In this they presume an important idea: that virtue […]
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The Proper Time to Eat
‘What is the proper time to eat?’, someone asks Diogenes the Cynic. ‘When rich, whenever you want; when poor, whenever you can.’ A pithy phrase, apparently saying little. It is a seed. Perhaps you might remember it and reflect on it from time to time. At first glance it conveys a certain sense of living […]
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Craft Your Nature
As natural as it should be to live in accordance with nature, we don’t take to it naturally. It takes practice and training and an amount of philosophical education to understand what nature requires and to align your will with those requirements. Our untrained nature often leads us astray. We’re naturally inclined to follow our […]
An experiment with philosophy as a way of life
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