Remarks

  • Thoughts on Being and Unity

    In 2012, while working in a postdoctoral position at St. John’s University, I became deeply immersed in Immanuel Kant’s monumental question: whether metaphysics, as the study of reality and existence, is possible as a science. This inquiry led me deep into the history of philosophy, from the early Pythagoreans to the Scholastic thinkers of the Continue reading

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  • The Fate of Theophrastus

    We rush to complete what we have yet to complete, fearful of the fate of Theophrastus. “Theophrastus, on his deathbed, is said to have accused nature of having given long lives to deer and ravens, to whom it had no interest, and to men, to whom it had been most useful, such short lives; if Continue reading

  • Preparatory to Philosophy

    By way of a preparatory, two things are required in the pursuit of truth: The first is a careful examination of the motivations and desires behind this pursuit. These can be divided into two kinds: those that lead us to the truth, and those that lead us into falsity. I call the former well-ordered and Continue reading

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  • On Making Decisions

    I often find myself struggling to make decisions: what to do, what to write, what path to pursue. But what is involved in any act of deciding? I raise this question for the reason that making decisions has become increasingly more significant to philosophy today. The more uncertain we become, the more uncertainty becomes a Continue reading

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  • The Afternoon of Life

    From Carl Jung’s On the Psychology of the Unconscious: Our life is like the course of the sun. In the morning it gains continually in strength until it reaches the zenith-heat of high noon. Then comes the enantiodromia: the steady forward movement no longer denotes an increase, but a decrease, in strength. Thus our task Continue reading

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  • On the Separation of the Soul From the Body

    As I grow older, I find myself increasingly inclined toward the Platonic position that the body is indeed something akin to a prison of the soul. My body is my own, yes. And yet, I and my body are not one and the same thing. In youth, we experience a false sense of security with Continue reading

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  • Does the Soul Matter?

    I recently had the chance to reread G.W.F. Leibniz’s 1714 essay Monadology This short work—comprising 90 succinct remarks—offers a compact yet profound treatment of the nature of reality, covering topics ranging from the nature of substance, the soul, free will, God, Science, and more. While reading, I was reminded of a short interview which I Continue reading

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  • The Physical and the Non-Physical

    To some, sensory experience serves as the sole criterion for determining what is, was, and will be . We might, however, question the assumptions behind this worldview. If a ball is dropped, we may measure its acceleration relative to gravity. Here we discern a fundamental relation: a falling object and an observer measuring its descent. Continue reading

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  • Ode to Wisdom

    Let me not claim to see.Let me not claim to know.Let me know—that I do not know!What freedom!What discovery! To awaken the burning desire.The new resolve.To journey through the desert.To turn over every rock.To burn my eyes in the Sun.To risk! O lover of Wisdom—You must take that risk.You must traverse the barren wilderness.You must Continue reading

  • Heidegger and the Concept of Being

    Martin Heidegger’s main thesis in his monumental work Being and Time is that the question of the meaning of being has been historically forgotten (Seinsvergessenheit) and needs to be recovered. But what if the concept of being is primitive? A primitive term is a concept which is both understood by all (who know the language) Continue reading