Author How to Be Authentic / How to be You; How to Live a Good Life; Existentialism & Romantic Love. Thinking Partner at Philosophy at Work. Existential DJ.
@thephilosotroll
@euthyphro
@JustinCaouette
No idea who said this, but I always have it in the back of my mind when I'm not sure I'm pronouncing a word correctly: 'Never make fun of people for mispronouncing a word. It means they learned it by reading'.
When I was starting out on my PhD, an academic asked me what I wanted to do afterwards. I said I wanted to teach. They told me “don’t say that. Say you want to be an academic”. That was bad advice. Teaching is valuable & worthwhile in itself.
Met a friend for coffee & they gave me a real hug. Not a flimsy-awkward-we-are-just-doing-this-because-of-social-convention hug. It was a true I-care-about-you hug. And it made my day. If consensual & flu-free, give better hugs these holidays. Friend, if you’re reading: thank you
"Ford seemed to symbolize women everywhere who had been assaulted as she recounted, yet again, her assault... Yovanovitch seems to symbolize any woman who’s ever had a man try to undermine her, demote her or push her out"
@Mimirocah1
@pithywidow
How to Live a Good Life out today with
@VintageAnchor
with 15 essays including Confucianism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Progressive Islam, Christianity, Existentialism, Pragmatism, Effective Altruism & more
"In truth, there is no divorce between philosophy and life. Every living step is a philosophical choice"
- Simone de Beauvoir, Existentialism & Popular Wisdom
A friend took his life last week. It’s an absolute tragedy. He went much too soon. I’m angry I couldn’t help him. Exasperated that he tried but couldn’t get the help he needed in the health “care” system. Heartbroken that the world is so unkind to so many. Be kinder. Please.
“It is heavy and hot. A day for silence, nakedness, shady rooms, abandonment. My thoughts are the color of your hair. Monday and a few days thereafter, they will be the color of your eyes” - Camus to Casares
@StephanieLaCava
@parisreview
Not entirely sure what I did to deserve this but today I was awarded a New York State Assembly citation for outstanding scholarship & community outreach!
TFW you lend a friend a rare book & they never give it back & years later you're not friends so you can't ask for it back & then remember that sort of thing is part of the reason you're no longer friends & you doubly mourn the loss of the book & the friend but the book more
My credit card details were stolen recently & spent on wine, restaurants, movies, concert tickets & a broadway show. I am mad they stole it but also mad that they are having so much more fun than me 😳
Hannah Arendt died on this day in 1975. Her thought remains more relevant than ever, bringing illumination, and teaching us how to love the world.
What is your favorite Arendt passage?
Sometimes I still think about the time I was rejected for a banking job. The reason, they said, was because "you don't know how to spell bank". They were referring to the fact I had previously worked at a foreign company with "Banc" in its name.
For Hume, to remain in good health and spirits, it was necessary not only to study, but to exercise and to seek the company of friends
@microphilosophy
@aeonmag
Humpback whales just off NYC today 🐋 How anyone could want to harm these magnificent animals is incomprehensible. (Thank you for an amazing afternoon
@CaptPaulWatson
@SeaShepherd
@APCruises
)
'Who am I? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And if I am to be compelled to take part in it, where is the manager? To whom shall I address my complaint?'
Happy belated birthday to Kierkegaard!
@aeonmag
STOP talking trash about existential philosophers
Beauvoir is BRILLIANT
Kierkegaard is ELOQUENT
Sartre is IMAGINATIVE
Nietzsche is INTRIGUING
Heidegger
Camus is HOT
"Women may be liked just fine until they stray from the designated path, invade male spaces, or threaten to take masculine-coded perks and powers away from comparatively privileged men" - my interview with
@kate_manne
@LAReviewofBooks
Two of my besties gave me this for my book launch. It’s a signed first edition of The Second Sex I am the luckiest person in the world. Thank you
@MissMMcCarthy
& Robb! 😭🥰
Very lucky to have had a preview of Entitled by
@kate_manne
which is an incredible book - beautifully written, superbly argued, and deeply challenging and disruptive in the best ways
Love this photo of Simone de Beauvoir (right) with her mother and sister. I'd never seen it before reading
@philosofemme
's excellent biography Becoming Beauvoir
My kid is doing a socially distanced camp in Central Park & one of the activities is called “Endurance”. They go to a field, and whoever can keep running around it for the longest time wins. This is ingenious. Highly recommend.
"The individual who is engaged in his time period, who tries to have a hold upon history by an action, or by an indignation, or by revolt, has much richer and much more profound ties with the world than the one who withdraws from the world in an ivory tower" - Simone de Beauvoir
Btw I have a new book out on Beauvoir, including a whole chapter on death! (No Tolkien or LOTR I'm afraid). You can order signed (& unsigned) copies via
@strandbookstore
here :)
Unpopular opinion 1: I think Rand wrote good stories.
Unpopular opinion 2: I think Rand wrote bad philosophy.
Unpopular opinion 3: I think Rand should be taken more seriously.
via
@aeonmag
Love it when dudes say to me: "You should read this book" & I say yes, I've written about it :) or yes, I've interviewed the author :) How about asking "Have you read this?" or "Do you know this book?" instead!
Honored & excited to be a keynote speaker at the Duke-Stanford Philosophy, Arts, & Literature Graduate Conference called "Stages of Life" next weekend!
“We must stop cheating: the whole meaning of our life is in question in the future that is waiting for us. If we do not know what we are going to be, we cannot know who we are...”
#Beauvoir
#WorldPhilosophyDay
: an occasion to consider the impact of philosophy and big ideas around the world and across cultures & an opportunity to reflect on the intellectual challenges that are confronting humanity today
@IAI_TV
"We read & write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business ... these are noble pursuits & necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love ... these are what we stay alive for"
#WaltWhitman
My 10-year-old has just informed me that the finger emoji I’ve been using in texts is actually flipping the bird. Apologies to anyone I’ve texted this to.
"One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion" - Simone de Beauvoir
@aeonmag
ICYMI: A searingly insightful conversation between the brilliant
@kate_manne
&
@seanilling
@voxdotcom
about a few of the (very) many things a stereotypical postmodern populist gets wrong
“Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test, consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect humankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.” ― Milan Kundera (born 1 Apr 1929)
"Camus was a moralist who unhesitatingly distinguished good from evil but abstained from condemning human frailty... He was a public man of action who insisted that all truly important questions came down to individual acts of kindness and goodness"
The criminal justice system is what’s *really* criminal here. I taught a philosophy class with an incredibly wonderful group of incarcerated men at MDC recently. Such intellectual openness & engagement I’ve not seen in a university classroom
More than a thousand inmates have been stuck in freezing cells at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal jail on the Brooklyn waterfront that has had limited power and heat for more than a week
"What do you believe in?"
"People's suffering, and the fact that it is abominable. One should do everything to abolish it. To tell you the truth, nothing else seems to me of any importance."
- Simone de Beauvoir, The Woman Destroyed
*also suffering of non-human animals