Tag Archives: existentialism

“Living Authentically”

Posted on by under General announcements

I’d meant to post this earlier, but it’s still not too late: my friend Monica Vilhauer is running a course on “Living Authentically,” focused on the work of Simone de Beauvoir via Skye Cleary’s new book on that subject, How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment. Starts a week from tomorrow, Sunday, August 6, 10 am-12 noon, Pacific Standard Time.

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I highly recommend every part of this package: Monica, Skye, and Simone. I know one of these ladies personally, one by social osmosis, and one by reputation: I’ve done a workshop on alienation with Monica through her organization Curious Soul Philosophy (which I very much enjoyed); I feel sure that I’ve met Skye somewhere in New York-area philosophy circles, but can’t remember where; and well, Simone de Beauvoir is Simone de Beauvoir. You’re guaranteed to learn something valuable from this trio–about yourself, and about the world you inhabit. 

Alienation is a problem easier dismissed than escaped or avoided: there are more incentives for wishing it away than dealing with it. But it’s there. And if it is, it’s a question where that leaves you as far as living authentically is concerned. We each have to answer that question for ourselves–however many of us that amounts to. This workshop will help.

It Sometimes Begins with Emerson

Posted on by under Uncategorized

I just did this survey, “put together by the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO) and the APA Committee on Pre-College Instruction in Philosophy.” (You have to be an APA member to take it.)

https://delaware.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4McDN9ZhI7GVYCp

It was fun. It gave me a chance to reflect on my first encounter with philosophy, which, contrary to the old saw, didn’t begin with Ayn Rand. It began in a high school English class on American literature, where we read Emerson and Thoreau. I’m not sure contemporary analytic philosophers would regard either of the two as real philosophers, but whatever you call them, they were my first contact with anything describable as philosophy.* I found them pretty enthralling, and still do. As it happens, I’m re-reading Walden for the first time in a couple of decades, and enjoying it immensely. One of my undergraduate teachers, George Kateb, predicted to me back then that I would one day forsake Ayn Rand and return home to the American Transcendentalists. I was offended at the time, but by George, he was right. Continue reading →