Here we are at the end of another year! In case you didn’t follow the blog over the whole year, here are some of the posts that I, personally, find the most insightful and inspiring.
Although Daily Philosophy has been going since October 2016, it’s only this year that I finally managed to work regularly on my articles. So sit down with a glass of wine (or juice), some light music in the background, and enjoy a relaxed hour of sharing some of the thoughts of the best minds from three millennia of philosophical history. Let’s go!
On September 19th, 2020, I started the new run with a topic that is very dear to me as a professional philosopher: freedom of speech. The article discusses the famous words of socialist reformer Rosa Luxemburg “Freedom is always the freedom to think otherwise.”
Freedom is always the freedom to think otherwise
Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), socialist revolutionary, once said: “Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.”
It will be no secret to the readers of this blog that I like Aristotle, so there were quite a number of posts over the past months that explored the ancient philosopher’s views on virtue, ethics, and happiness. Here are two examples:
Aristotle on moral development
For Aristotle, the moral development of a person progresses in three stages: from akrates, to enkrates, to sophron or wise person.
Life Is a Skill
Aristotle on living a life well through exercising one’s virtues.
In my personal opinion, philosophy is most relevant when it allows us to use the wisdom of the past in order to understand the problems of today. Richard Taylor makes a case for more creativity in our lives:
Richard Taylor on the Creative Life
Richard Taylor (1919–2003) thought that it’s creativity that makes us feel happy and fulfilled. According to Taylor, a life lived without exercising one’s creativity is a wasted life.
And, similarly, Erich Fromm laments how the modern ways of industrial production have impoverished human experience. You can find our Ultimate Guide to the Philosophy of Erich Fromm here:
The Ultimate Guide to the Philosophy of Erich Fromm
A comprehensive overview of Erich Fromm’s philosophy of happiness. We discuss his life, his ideas and his main works, both in their historical context and how they are still relevant for us today.
Another area in which the modern concept of progress is radically different from the past is our ability to separate the elements of …
Read the full article which is published on Daily Philosophy (external link)
