Medium is wonderful, but its structure sometimes buries stories away from view. — N.B. — This is only the second of my last 80 articles that was not “Distributed” by Medium. The moral of the story is don’t talk about Medium. 2021 was a great year for me on Medium, and I am grateful to everyone who took the time to read any…

Dealing (finally) with the still pernicious effects of colonialism — The age of colonialism that began in 1492 and supposedly ended sometime in the 1960s, by which time most former colonies had become independent nations. Postcolonial philosophers look at the ongoing legacy of colonialism, in particular the ideological justifications for colonial imperialism and oppression of non-European peoples. In short, colonialism…

Between the hazardous rocks of Scylla and Charybdis lies a passage to new vistas. — It is an idea I have had for awhile, but a recent lunch with an academic colleague brought home how much the idea is needed. “Academia is a factory” my colleague said, “we are forced to work on and publish on certain topics and churn out acceptable conclusions. …

A brief lecture on how the philosophical movement differs from modernism. — Transcript: What is postmodernism? It’s a term people use mostly in terms of trying to insult something, but many people who use the term-both advocates for something called postmodernism or people vehemently against something called postmodernism-don’t really understand what the term means. That includes right wingers like Jordan Peterson…

A thought experiment on how to think about human action. Rough draft based on some of my earlier writings. — We are all individuals embedded in a world. We each have a certain degree of freedom that is limited by the reality that we all share a physical world and a human society. …

A deeper dive into understanding the left-wing of the political spectrum. — Part 5 in my five-part series on rethinking the political spectrum. Part 1: What “Left” and “Right” Mean Part 2: The Fake Axis Part 3: The Fake Left and the Reactionary Right Part 4: What Is Conservatism? The Two “Liberals” First off, we need to distinguish between two very different uses of the…

A Businessman Reminded Me about the Essence of Philosophy. — Join Medium and read great independent writing As a Medium member, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story…dgilesphilosopher.medium.com Philosopher for Hire Every now and then I am contacted by someone who wants to hire me to help them write a paper or book. I’ve had rewarding collaborations over the years, helping people form their ideas and polish their writing, and it’s been a nice income supplement (being a philosophy professor pays…

A deeper dive into understanding the right-wing of the political spectrum. — Part 4 in my series on rethinking the political spectrum. Part 1: What “Left” and “Right” Mean Part 2: The Fake Axis Part 3: The Fake Left and the Reactionary Right Part 5: What Is Liberalism? We have seen in Part 1 that we can better comprehend political actions by…

About the past, present, and future… — Term is over, conferences are over. Both “yay” and “ugh.” Eighteen days ago I thought I’d explain why I was about to have my longest fallow period on this site. It was my least read story ever — not even a dozen people. Not sure what that says. While I…