I had the opportunity to attend the book launch for Wendy Pirsig’s book On Quality: An Inquiry into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings. My book, Pyrrho’s Way: The Ancient Greek Version of Buddhism, devotes a chapter to parallels between part of Robert Pirsig’s thought and ancient Greek Pyrrhonist philosophy. I…

Well, you know, that’s just like your virtue, man. A few months ago Massimo Pigliucci announced that he was abandoning his Twitter and Facebook accounts, where he had tens of thousands of followers, because of the pernicious effects social media is having on society. …

And a Heaping Helping of Wisdom Ancient Greek logicians identified many flaws in how people commonly reasoned. One flaw often discussed in ancient logic was the “sorites paradox,” also known as the “paradox of the heap.” An example makes the idea clear. Everyone knows what a heap of sand is…

The emptiness of a fashionable modern critique Many recent articles have criticized Stoicism. I’m even the author of some of them (this, that, and the other). However, the June 15, 2022 publication of Henry Gruber’s Don’t be stoic: Roman Stoicism’s origins show its perniciousness published by the popular online magazine…

It Is A Way of Life In a recent podcast with Casey Spaulding at the Academy of Reason, Massimo Pigliucci declared that “[ancient Greek] skepticism wasn’t really a philosophy of life, but an attitude.”[1] This may be true of the late-stage Academic Skepticism professed by Cicero upon which Massimo bases his own professed Neoskepticism, and this…

A brief guide to the modern revivals of Hellenistic philosophy — You’ve probably seen many articles about adopting Stoicism as a philosophy of life, particularly here on Medium, but Stoicism was just one of the philosophies of life that flourished in the ancient Greco-Roman era. The other Hellenistic philosophies of life are all well-worth knowing about. These philosophies were not the…

What Do Pyrrhonists Mean By “Dogma”? This is the second of two articles promised in my review of Plínio Junqueira Smith’s book, Sextus Empiricus’ Neo-Pyrrhonism. As the book is expensive and dense, but its ideas are tremendously valuable for understanding Pyrrhonism, this is one in a series of articles to…

The Pyrrhonist Logos This is the first of at least two articles promised in my review of Plínio Junqueira Smith’s book, Sextus Empiricus’ Neo-Pyrrhonism. As the book is expensive and dense, but its ideas are tremendously valuable for understanding Pyrrhonism, this is one in a series of articles to expand…

Don’t Let It Ruin Your Happiness Even those who know very little ancient Roman history likely know the final words that Shakespeare put into the mouth of Julius Caesar — “et tu, Brute” — “you too, Brutus?” — which he said upon discovering that a man he thought was a friend was part of a conspiracy…