Which questions are against the rules in your social and professional life? Why? What does that tell you about the nature of questions? Is the sheer act of asking “why,” even in good faith, a gesture of defiance?
Is there anything that unites all people who put flags outside their houses as distinct from those who don’t?
Are we more likely to find flags in places where the flag represents something controversial (or conventional)?
What is the psychological profile of someone who places a flag outside their…
What contemporary practice or institution has replaced the duel? Does a willingness to fight to the death signify foolishness or honor?
Carl Schmitt writes in Political Theology, that all political concepts have their derivation in theology; the “state of exception” or “state of emergency,” in political life, he claims, corresponds to the miracle in theology. If Schmitt is correct, then one cannot avoid having a theology…
Geoffrey West writes that the world is composed of fractals: every entity is a scaled up or scaled down version of another entity — a city is a kind of super-organism; a cell network is a kind of micro-city.
Obviously, everyone has the ability to be silent, and I’m sure most languages have a word for “silence.” Still, the question is if the flavor and even the meaning of silence is tied to the language in which it occurs?
Leo Strauss says, in Persecution and the Art of Writing, that philosophers have more in common with each other than they have with other members of their society or culture, even when they disagree fundamentally about the most basic questions.
Can philosophy be scaled without becoming a) culty b)boozhie-consumerist or c) corrupted in the ways that plague both large religions and bureaucracies?
Thank you for following the daily question! I’m moving the project to Substack. Here’s today’s question
Nassim Taleb writes in Skin in the Game that morality is best understood as the set of norms that bind you to your tribe (kind of like a code of conduct at a country club). Obey the rules in exchange for the benefits that come from belonging; disobey, get kicked out. You can always…