Today's excerpt comes from a recently published paper, titled Eros and Anxiety, by Professor Vida Yao. The paper explores ideals of rationality, authenticity, and how they interact with transformative experiences – specifically, the experience of falling in love. Yao is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at UCLA, and is interested in Ethics and Moral Psychology, specifically the philosophy of emotions and the self.

Read it yourself at ⁠⁠⁠alifeofthought.com/d15⁠⁠⁠ -- Or join the conversation at ⁠⁠⁠community.alifeofthought.com⁠⁠⁠.

Yao, Vida. “Eros and Anxiety.” Synthese 202, no. 6 (December 6, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04391-0.

Today’s excerpt comes from §92-94 of Wittgenstein’s ‘On Certainty.’ In it, Wittgenstein explores the difference between normal, every-day, beliefs – like “the bus is going to get here at 2:30pm” – and beliefs that serve, in one way or another, as backdrops for us, and seem quite obvious: ‘The world has existed for a long time.

Read it yourself at ⁠⁠alifeofthought.com/d15⁠⁠ -- Or join the conversation at ⁠⁠community.alifeofthought.com⁠⁠.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Major Works: Selected Philosophical Writings. 1. ed. HarperPerennial ModernThought. New York: HarperPerennial, 2009, sec. 92-94

Today's excerpt comes from a lecture written by Henry David Thoreau, titled walking. The lecture itself is a sort of walk, meandering and sauntering around.

Read it yourself at ⁠⁠alifeofthought.com/d15⁠⁠ -- Or join the conversation at ⁠⁠community.alifeofthought.com⁠⁠.

Citation: Thoreau, Henry David. “Walking.” In Thackeray Newman Ruskin Huxley Thoreau and Others, Deluxe Edition., 393–425. Harvard Classics. P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1938.