Continuum Philosophical Insight
Philosophical Consulting and Education
[CPI Seminars] [CPI Lyceum Platform] Two momentous intellectual events occurred in 1879: Wilhelm Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for psychological research at the University of Leipzig, and Pope Saint Leo XIII released the encyclical Aeterni Patris, which exhorted the retrieval and teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Catholic universities. The first, while a legitimate and …
The latest 15 Minute Insight, first of a series of undetermined length: here, looking at the nature of literature as the principal storytelling medium in civilization and examining (briefly) its mimetic function as instructive. Jealousy, in particular among the emotions central to The End of the Affair, seems to me most easily misunderstood. For one, …
Continue reading "Literature & Philosophy [15 Minute Insight]"
As part of a forthcoming endeavor, I am launching a new program of Quaestiones disputatae. More details will be shared on this new program in the near future. Right now, however, I would like to draw attention explicitly to the public-facing part of this program, the quodlibetal question. Quodlibetal questions were a special form of disputation in …
An excerpt from a Gloss within Introduction to Philosophical Principles: --- Among the most popular arguments against the existence of God is the imperfection of the universe: the argument that not only are our lives on earth messy—at times through no fault of our own as either individuals or even as a species, as when a …
Electricity, more than any other technological innovation in the history of humankind, changed our perceptual habits: not only by the disruption of our circadian cycle, but by the way in which it allowed us to create products of mass culture and subsequently perfuse our lives with them. That is: culture has held a prominent role …
Continue reading "Sex & Gender: The Irreducible Masculine and Feminine"
In Defense of Monoamory, or Why Open Relationships aren’t for Anyone Most human thinking is determined not by free investigation of beings, let alone of being, but by the ephemeral vogue. This is true no less in philosophy than in more popular culture; only, within the ivoried walls of the academy, sophisticated language routinely obscures …
A review of Kate Manne’s Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (Oxford University Press: New York, 2018). “So maybe the thing to say,” to the apathetic, indifferent masses perniciously ignorant about the misogyny prevailing in our culture, Manne writes near the end of her book (page 290, to be precise), “somewhat reluctantly is—fuck ‘em, in …
Continue reading "Semantic Activism in the Service of Ideology"
A review of Carrie Jenkins' What Love Is: And What It Could Be (Basic Books: NY. 2017). “Romantic love”, Carrie Jenkins writes near the end of her book, “cannot continue to be something we just stumble into and accept.” This is true, and Jenkins’ book does instigate questioning after the truth of what romantic love is …
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