Welcome!

Welcome to Without Why! This is my new philosophy newsletter and blog.

This newsletter is a philosophical exploration of our current world. In the first year, I will be writing a section by section commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, and I will also be posting regularly on the philosophical implications of issues in technology, AI, education, and music.

The perspective I bring draws on my scholarly research in existential phenomenology, as well as my 10+ years of 0ngoing work in the consulting and professional development world with Fernando Flores.

The following is a more detailed but still brief introduction to me and what I will be up to here.

The name "Without Why" is from a 17th-century christian mystic, Angelus Silesius, who wrote: "Die Rose ist ohne warum; sie blühet weil sie blühet" - "The rose is without why; it blooms because it blooms." I will not try to explain what these words might mean or why I chose them for my title. I leave them to linger in your listening.

The initial burst of activity here in my first year will be a concoction of different elements. First, I will be providing philosophical dispatches on relevant concerns of the day (for example, philosophical issues arising with developments in AI). This will sometimes include updates about projects I am working on (for example, I have upcoming posts about work I'm doing on intuition, expertise, and skill acquisition, and also the phenomenology of commitment).

Second, I will be sharing brief bursts of more robust philosophical reflection. On the front burner for this is a section-by-section, condensed, running commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time. I’m privately calling this "The 'greatest hits' of Being and Time," or maybe “Being and Time Distilled.” I intend it as an accessible introduction to this difficult and essential work. The first one of these will drop next week.

The first several installments of my series on Heidegger can be found by clicking here, here, here, and here. Check them out and let me know what you think.

Who should bother to read and understand Heidegger today? Anyone passionate about big questions, invested in how we build worlds together, at work on questions about the nature of intelligence (artificial or otherwise), concerned about what we are doing to ourselves with our technological devices, involved in helping other people recognize and overcome their own limitations, and, finally, anyone in wonder about the nature of reality and the purposes of human life. 

A Heidegger scholar by training (my PhD is from Northwestern University), I have published widely on various dimensions of his thought (especially his conception of the self). My approach to Heidegger's philosophy has been shaped not only by my scholarly research, but by my long collaborations and friendships with two of my mentors: Hubert Dreyfus and Fernando Flores. I am convinced we still have much to learn by thinking through what Heidegger thought. This is true even though Heidegger himself was, to say the least, a person of wretched political and ethical judgment. In the future, I will write a whole post about this very issue.

It is a wild time to be alive. Are we witnessing the birth of human-level artificial intelligence? What does that even mean? How do we need to alter and improve our own communication skills now that machines are in our conversational spaces? How do we identify and nurture those aspects of being human that machines cannot simulate? Are there any? Does it matter? How do we live together in a world where shared standards of truth have disappeared? Can we still trust in the dream of technological progress? Can we still have faith in the project of liberal, pluralistic democracy?

Questions like these compel us to reexamine our long-held certainties. Living in these times requires an impetus for questioning and imagining beyond our usual horizons, and an openness to newly explore what it means to be human in a technological age. This is exactly what philosophical conversation is good for. In these pages, I aim to create a space for such essential conversations. Please tell your friends if you think they would like to be a part of these conversations.

Join me!