Probably not who you’d guess.

In asking the question of who is history’s most influential philosopher, we’re looking back at the entirety of history, not who’s the most influential today. Across the 2,400 years of Western philosophy, one philosopher’s writings have had the most direct influence on the most scholars over the most years.

Accidents of History

Believe it or not, Plotinus (204–270 CE) is that single most influential philosopher in European history. Yes, even over Plato and Aristotle. That’s because Plotinus was very widely read by scholars starting in the 200s CE, and for more than a thousand years Plotinus was the chief means…

The Disclosure Narrative

Without pretending to know what UFOs are, my aim as a philosopher is to clear away the underbrush and obstacles of the assumptions and agendas that hamper reasonable discussion of the UFO phenomenon. A clear view of the UAP/UFO reality is obscured by people’s assumptions and vested interests.

Maybe the Phenomena are Real and the Assumptions are False

Let’s first knock down two assumptions. On one extreme is the assumption that there’s nothing to the UFO phenomena except delusion. On the other extreme is the assumption that UFO sightings are proof of aliens. Both positions are irrational and contrary to evidence.

Skepticism is a claim to know more than others…

If your mind is empty,
it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities;
in the expert’s mind there are few.

The concept of “empty mind” is a core tenant of Zen Buddhism. Don’t misunderstand what is meant by “empty mind.” It is not a mind devoid of intelligence or even empty of thoughts. An empty mind is a clear mind, as this quote shows.

Zen is a combination of Buddhism and Daoism. There is a Daoist saying that illustrates what this quote means:

A full cup cannot take in…

My parents taught me that everything in life is a struggle. An odd song from the 1990s is teaching me to overcome it.

In my childhood family, under the thin veneer of suburban tranquility, was my parents’ constant tension from their unhappy marriage. Their frustration permeated everything and I picked up on it, learning to embody the tension in which I was immersed. At a certain point as an adult, I realized that as long as I could remember, whenever I started any physical task, my body tensed up. Even for simple tasks like washing a dish or cutting food, I was unconsciously tensing every muscle as if I was moving a large appliance or wrestling a bear. …

Frell yeah — BaBa ZuLa

I was very excited to hear that filmmaker Adriana Cordeiro is working on a documentary on the band BaBa ZuLa. She has a Kickstarter page to finish the documentary and I made a pledge to help out and hope other will too. BaBa ZuLa is one of the most popular artists on my Internet radio station WorldFusionRadio.com and it is a band the world deserves to hear and see more about.

For most Westerners, especially English-speaking people, Turkey is a mysterious land. Few realize how dynamic and varied the Turkish music scene has been for…

Are you familiar with the work of philosopher Lewis Gordon? Similar to your idea of misnoir is his idea of antiblack racism. In his phenomenology of racism, Gordon observes that racism requires the rejection of other people’s humanity, which is a denial of reality. Because communication is possible between the racist and the people at whom racist hatred is directed, the social reality that those people are indeed human will appear. In antiblack racism, the existence of the black person is a problem. The racist must therefore avoid and deny the social reality of the black person’s existence. In particular…

It begins with listening and then talking about causes and solutions.

Another cop kills another unarmed black person. Another tragic incident in the United States’ long history of racial violence.

Some people aren’t interested in talking about racism. Others are willing to try to address this problem, but not sure how. Plus, too often, as in all topics these days, the conversation is drowned out by competing memes and hashtags. Whether or not everyone is willing to talk about racism and whether or not everyone has sufficient expertise on racism, as a society, as humanity, we need to talk about it in order to overcome it and end it. …

That things change was a problem for Greek philosophers. Aristotle had a theory for how we can understand change.

How Objects Change

One of the biggest problems that ancient Greek philosophers dealt with was the problem of change. Why and how do objects change? Plato had agreed with a number of Greek philosophers before him that change was an uncomfortable dilemma. Their reasoning was that Truth was something that was perfect, and perfection is unchanging. Perfect circles are always perfectly circular. Anything that changed was not perfect. Plato’s Forms address this — they are perfect and unchanging, and they are what are fully real; the objects that change in the visible realm are less real. Another problem these philosophers had was that…