Vertical Thinking

by Nathan Cheever

Thinkers Corner, July 2024

Adversity stinks, but it might be more favorable than good fortune.

While awaiting his execution in prison in 524 AD, Boethius wrote a short work that would become a best-seller for a thousand years: “The Consolation of Philosophy”. In it, he concludes that bad luck is more favorable to humans than good fortune. Why? Fortune (personified as a fickle goddess) is more honest in revealing her ways than good luck, which can easily deceive us into false security. We are more free through realizing our fragility than with the cloying pampering of good luck.

Thinkers Corner, June 2024

Good things come from and are dependent upon that which is best.

“Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.” This was said by Socrates, the father of Western philosophy, in his defense before the Athenian jury before being sentenced to death 2,423 years ago. The longer I reflect on that line, the more it opens up. Here are a few ways we could understand Socrates’s point. One could use it appropriately to tout traditional values, hard work and academic achievement.

Thinkers Corner, April 2024

Latest isn't necessarily better

A thought from a grumpy German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, on our tendency to confuse what is new with what is good. “No greater mistake can be made than to imagine that what has been written latest is always the more correct; that what is written later on is an improvement on what was written previously; and that every change means progress.”

Marginal Strangeness vs. Total Strangeness

At least 4.6 billion1 people believe they will live on after they die. They believe that somewhere, somehow, their spirit, soul, or essence will persist beyond the grave. However mystical the process, life after death is not a strange idea to them. In fact it is quite familiar and perhaps comforting. But to that same group the idea of reincarnation – of living again in a different human or animal body – that idea sounds too strange to take seriously.

Deprivation and Absence

In which I talk about the difference between the two

I stumbled upon a line when reading the other day that got me thinking. “Error is not just an absence, but a deprivation -— the lack of knowledge that somehow ought to be in me."1 Whether error is an absence or privation isn’t important to me at the moment, but how well this line highlights the difference between absence and deprivation. To illustrate the difference, if I say, “Mary had a little….

Love, cheese, and dead French philosophers

A triologue of three French philosophers on the intersection of intellect, love and how to educate our souls.

I’ve picked up reading Blaise Pascal’s Pensées lately and this statement made me wonder: “The greater the intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men."1 Do you agree? Intelligence corresponds with an ability to see, perceive, and find things. And not just regular objects, but qualities such as uniqueness, originality, and worth. Failing to see difference in men could mean one is more prone to prejudice and bias.

Form Thinking

Essay 1: An introduction to form thinking

The strangest homework assignment I received in college was to go outside after class and burrow into the ground. I did not complete that assignment. The next day my biology professor asked if any of us tried it. Nobody raised their hands. He then explained why. “That’s because you don’t have the right shape for burrowing! But a mole, with their small bodies, their paws and claws, they’re quite at home burrowing.

The Essential Philamping Packing List

Four maxims to pack when you're roughing it...philosophically

Today I want to talk to you about philamping and what to pack for it so you’re prepared. “Phila-what?”, I hear you asking. Yes, I made that word up. I guess that’s the kind of thing that happens when you’re driving across the country in a Uhaul with no radio or smartphone. My mind starts to mash up words. It means philosophical camping. I don’t think this term exists, but it ought to, as I’ll explain.

DeadTED #1: God Is Dead

A fictional TED-talk-like speech given by Nietzsche from his book 'The Gay Science'.

A fictional TED-talk-like speech given by Nietzsche from his book 'The Gay Science'.

Why I Recommend Philosophy

Mark Twain once said: “Philosophy is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime." Actually, the first word he said was ‘Travel”. Read it again with “Travel” and you’ll see that the two are interchangeable. They’re similar in that respect.