Orientation
Writing is an outgrowth of living–not the other way around. To live well is what matters; to write well only matters to the degree that living well matters. Dying well without writing well: that would still be enough, more than enough.
In my writing, I mean to return philosophy to the world we have in common. So I ask:
- What is involved in leading a radiant life?
- How is self-examination like living more fully?
- How can philosophy attune us to the each other, to the ineffable?
- What sort of education of the soul lets us ask these question of ourselves and our beloveds?
I am writing a book on philosophical life. The book and I are one.
“Radiance: An Essay for Unsettled Time” (book manuscript)
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Most Recent
“Counselling: Putting Lives in Order,” The Philosophers’ Magazine 57.
“Prescribing Aristotle,” Conversation at Washington Post (August 23, 2011).
“Wistfulness in These Strange Times,” Spike Magazine (September 6, 2011).
“Whither Moral Education?” World and I (November 1, 2011).
“Introduction,” Jane Austen: Four Novels (Canterbury Classics, 2011).
“Letter Writing as Spiritual Exercise,” Philosophical Practice 6.3 (2011), 856-68.
“Austen’s Ethical Vision of Wholehearted Love,” World and I, February 2012.
“Towards a Transformative Philosophy of Education,” New Public Thinking #1, eds. Keith Kahn-Harris and Dougald Hine, February 2012.
“On the Need for Speculative Philosophy Today,” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social History 8.1 (2012), 47-61.
“Following Nature’s Course,” Dark Mountain Project #3, forthcoming.
“The Philosopher as Shepherd,” Journal of Modern Wisdom, ed. Ben Irvine, forthcoming.
Essays on Philosophy as a Way of Life
“The Life Need of Philosophy,” Huffington Post (May 2, 2011).
“Our Failure of Imagination,” Inside Higher Ed (April 8, 2011). Part 2.
“Models for Post-University Life,” Inside Higher Ed (March 16, 2011). Part 1.
Essays on Moral Education
“Introduction,” Jane Austen: Four Novels, Canterbury Press, November 2011.
“Whither Moral Education?” World and I (November 1, 2011).
Essays on Public Philosophy
“Who is David Brooks?,” Huffington Post (April 12, 2011).
“What is New Public Thinking? Three Reflections,” with Keith Kahn-Harris and Pat Kane. New Public Thinking (March 29, 2011).
“Radical Leftist Politics, What Have You Done for Us Lately?,” New Public Thinking (February 28, 2011).
“In the Land of Bloombergia,” Counterpunch (February 9, 2011).
“Philosophy, What’s it Good for?” Arts and Opinions 9.5 (2010).
“With What Authority does a Public Philosopher Speak?” Butterflies and Wheels (July 18, 2010).
“Philosophy in the Popular Imagination,” Butterflies and Wheels (June 27, 2010).
“Taking Relativism Seriously,” Butterflies and Wheels (January 12, 2009).
“Badiou Abridged,” symploke 14.1/2 (2006): 297-305.
Essays on Speculative Philosophy
“On the Need for Speculative Philosophy Today,” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social History, forthcoming 2012.
“An Encomium for Richard Holloway,” Butterflies and Wheels (February 2, 2011).
“Unbounded Naturalism,” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social History 4.1/2 (2008): 154-77.
“Adorno and the Question of Metaphysics,” New Essays on the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, ed. Alfred Drake (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010): 210-36.
Book Reviews
Benedict’s Dharma: Buddhists Reflect on the Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Patrick Henry, Philosophical Practice, forthcoming 2012.
“The Function and Value of Literature and Literary Studies Reconsidered,” College Literature 33.4 (Fall 2006): 204-16.
The Century by Alain Badiou, symploke 16.1/2 (2008): 311-13.
Adorno’s Negative Dialectic: Philosophy and the Possibility of Critical Rationality by Brian O’Connor, Substance 6.1 (2007): 172-8.
