Category Archives: Philosophy

Solitude and Struggle

Haven’t blogged for a while. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write, why write, why share what I write. I write almost every day and I know at least why I do that: it’s for myself, to get my … Continue reading

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Angels and Alchemists

There are lots of tantalising ideas in Gary Lachman’s The Quest for Hermes Trismegistus. For one, the notion of a prisca theologia (“ancient theology”) or “perennial philosophy” that was handed to humankind at the dawn of time but has since … Continue reading

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The Admonishing Stars

Imagine if the stars came out only once every thousand years, says Ralph Waldo Emerson. How people would gather to see them, and preserve the memory of them, passing down the story of the stars from generation to generation. (Imagine … Continue reading

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Fact and Fiction

I’m making notes for my Substack and I came across this passage from Hume, quoted by Barry Stroud in his 1977 book on the philosopher: “If one person sits down to read a book as a romance, and another as … Continue reading

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On David Hume and Perception

I’m putting together some notes for a long-term project I’m planning to share on my Substack (which you can go and look at and even subscribe to if you like! It’s a bit bare for now but I will begin … Continue reading

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Sharing Dreams

I’m reading Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb this week. Not telling the prophetic dreams makes them sick. It’s like an obsession, says one of the dreamers. It feels, upon waking, like the dream must be told, or at least written … Continue reading

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Labyrinths

For Borges a labyrinth is a place, somewhere you might find yourself, which has the quality of being infinite. It might be a house and the house might have only fourteen rooms. But if those fourteen rooms are your whole … Continue reading

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The Conscientious One

“I am the one I must be,” says Zarathustra. He accepts himself fully the way he is. And he walks with a carefree step. So carefree that in fact he is sometimes careless. And walking through the swamp he steps … Continue reading

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Waiting

It’s difficult to wait for something. How many times in your life have you really had to wait? Usually if something you look forward to is happening in the future, you pass the time until then. The show is on … Continue reading

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The Editor and the Escritoire

A less extraordinary mind would have been incapable of worrying so much about an old desk and would never have made the discovery. Victor Eremita, fictitious editor of Søren Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, tells the story of how he came across the … Continue reading

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