Natural philosophy includes dividing ideas into empirical, rational, and irrational as well as understanding their philosophical context. Philosophical context includes understanding the timing of discoveries and rediscoveries as well as the philosophers behind them and their publications.
30 Phil, Chapter 31, Sartre, Touchstone 79: Consciousness. Consciousness is a continuous, self-aware state of existence, an incessant ebb and flow of perceptions, ideas, and emotions. Consciousness is part of your worldview with two basic states: awake and asleep. It’s a complex spectrum of levels while awake, and stages while asleep.
30 Phil, Chapter 31, Sartre, Touchstone 78: Anxiety. The birth of modern psychology: In existentialism, anxiety is the result of confronting the inherent freedoms and responsibilities of human existence. It is not necessarily about fearing specific outcomes or events but rather the realization of the vast possibilities and choices one faces in life, and the
30 Phil, Chapter 30, Nietzsche, Touchstone 77: Eternal Recurrence. The Eternal Recurrence is a thought experiment that urges you to live as though your life will repeat itself infinitely. It is designed to awaken a sense of urgency and existential responsibility. The potency of this idea lies in its call for radical responsibility; it compels
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30 Phil, Chapter 30, Nietzsche, Touchstone 76: Übermensch. The Übermensch, or superman, is the ideal person who transcends societal norms and self-imposed limitations. They overcome the existing values and moralities of society, creating their own values, and living in a way that is true to themselves.
30 Phil, Chapter 30, Nietzsche, Touchstone 75: Nihilism. Shake off societal pressures: Nihilism is a tool to examine and potentially overcome the problem of illusion in reality. You use the idea that life lacks objective meaning, purpose, and intrinsic value to break free of the illusions of life like social constructs and pressures. This updated
30 Phil, Chapter 29, Mill, Touchstone 74: Harm Principle. You’re free to do what you want, as long as you don’t harm others. It delineates between self-regarding and other-regarding actions as a basis for when societal intervention is justified. Self-regarding actions are those that primarily affect the individual who undertakes them. Other-regarding actions have broader
30 Phil, Chapter 28, Kant, Touchstone 73: Categorical Imperative. The Categorical Imperative says you should act only in a manner that you would be comfortable seeing transformed into a universal law.
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30 Phil, Chapter 28, Kant, Touchstone 72: Transcendental Idealism. The Split and Three-Tine Fork: Transcendental Idealism is Kant’s view on epistemology. His distinction between phenomena and noumena and his three-tiered approach to knowledge. Kant introduced a crucial distinction between phenomena—the world as we see and understand it—and noumena—the world as it exists independently of our
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30 Phil, Chapter 27, Hume, Touchstone 71: Hume’s Fork. Hume’s Fork is a philosophical tool that categorizes meaningful statements into two distinct types: relations of ideas and matters of fact. It offers a clear demarcation between different kinds of truths. Relations of ideas are statements that are necessarily true, such as “all bachelors are unmarried.”
30 Phil, Chapter 27, Hume, Touchstone 70: The Problem of Induction. The logic behind induction is inherently circular, hence, the problem of induction. We expect future events to be like past events because this has generally been true in the past. This justification itself is inductive, making the whole process circular and self-referential. Although induction
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30 Phil, Chapter 27, Hume, Touchstone 69: Skeptical Empiricism. Skeptical Empiricism challenges the idea of innate knowledge, asserting all we know stems from our experiences.
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Public truth needs more than stories; it needs reporting. Journalism helps turn you turn what “people say” into “here is what we can show.”
You need a fully free press because public truth needs watchdogs, not just officials and institutions.
When publicly discussing spirituality, distinguish thought of the material world, what we directly experience, from the spiritual interpretations beyond it. Organize each spiritual idea into agnostic, nontheistic, and theistic.
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30 Phil, Chapter 25, Spinoza, Touchstone 65: Monism. Monism says the universe is composed of a single substance. An infinite reality that underpins all existence. There is only the Material World, no other realms.
30 Philosophers, Chapter 24, Locke, Touchstone 62: Checks and Balances. For the preservation of individual liberty and the prevention of tyranny, political power must be distributed among different branches of government—executive, legislative, and judicial. It is grounded in the idea that human nature is easily corruptible and concentrating power is dangerous. This diversification embodies the
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30 Phil, Chapter 24, Locke, Touchstone 61: The Social Contract. The social contract emerges out of natural rights and civil government. A government formed by the “collective will” of the people specifically to protect these rights. Citizens consent to be governed, but this consent comes with the stipulation that their inalienable rights must be respected
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Legal power is not the same thing as legal truth but when a claim carries legal force, give more attention to the evidence, not less.
30 Phil, Chapter 24, Locke, Touchstone 64: Natural Rights. Natural Rights are the inherent rights in our nature that all people have simply by being human. They are not externally granted.
