Deep Dive
Dive deeper into issues of value, purpose and duty.
Affirming Existence
The most fundamental truth of existence is existence itself. Everything we can know or love is part of a seamless flow of existence through time.
We can use our ability to choose and act to affirm existence through choosing to act creatively and bring qualitatively more existence into being.
Matters of Value
Beliefs about what reality is like can be checked through systematic observation.
Beliefs about what holds value or what ought to be done, however, can’t be checked by observation, for value isn’t itself observable. Nor is duty.
Two Approaches to Living Well
Philosophy has traditionally taken an idea-centred approach to issues of value, purpose and duty. We can call this ethics.
But it is also possible to take a reality-centred aesthetic approach — one that explores the concrete details of a particular person’s life.
Narrative Purpose
Western philosophy has traditionally favoured the abstract over the concrete. Its methods have focused on reason and logic. Narrative provides a reality-centred alternative. It binds different aspects of what we know into integrated bodies of thought that tell us what the world is like and how we should act within it.
At their best, these narratives are completely coherent. They match the objective reality of the world and orient us towards the best of possible futures — the possible futures that we’d most like to inhabit.
Truths of Flourishing
Natural selection has imbued all living things with an instinctive sense of what will raise their chances of surviving and reproducing. Even bacteria move towards food and away from danger.
Our traditional ideas of what makes for admirable action tend to embody an understanding of how actions can help people flourish, either individually or as a community.
Needs & Flourishing
All living things have certain needs that must be met if they are to flourish.
Order & Information
States of affairs in which a person’s needs are met and they flourish are always information-rich. They are states that are unlikely to come about by themselves.
Normally, a person must act with precision if they are to flourish. This is to act intelligently, for intelligence can be defined by its ability to create order.
Faith
There is a profound difference between belief, where you assume that a set of ideas captures reality adequately, and faith, where you assume that reality as it happens to be, including your own flawed beliefs, is perfectly satisfactory.
With faith, you can live and love freely.
Faith
There is a profound difference between belief, where you assume that a set of ideas captures reality adequately, and faith, where you assume that reality as it happens to be, including your own flawed beliefs, is perfectly satisfactory.
With faith, you can live and love freely.