Peripatetic Periodical
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Retrospect: the Nature of Culture
Our Philosophical Happy Hour (26 August 2026) inquired into the nature of culture. Here is a brief retrospective survey of our discussion. The word “culture” remains laden with confused significations. Sorting out its meaning, organizing the uses of it, and identifying the proper phenomenon it names proves no easy task. Yet even a relatively short…
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Culture as a Technology
“Culture”. We hear the word all the time: the culture is in decline, we are losing our culture, we are fighting a culture war. But ask someone to define culture, and you will likely receive many different answers—answers which consist primarily in listing what kinds of thing belong to culture: language, art, movies, music, politics,…
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Technologizing Our Bodies
Commonly, we find the human body today treated as a possession, a something-other which is distinct from the self. This opposition of the “self” to the body may result in various forms of neglect or abuse of the latter. But it may also, in recognizing the importance of the body for life even as it…
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…Finishing Our Sentences?
…Finishing Our Sentences? Language and the Habits of Thought in the Age of Generative AI Most discussion about artificial intelligence today tends toward either hype or panic. Optimists see in it a miraculous tool, the future of scientific advancement, and a development not only to rival the industrial revolution in its transformative power, but—perhaps—one that…
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Technology’s Effects on Nature
Commonly, we presume an opposition between the “natural” and the “artificial”. Usually, we assume the “natural” to be everything untouched by human hands, whereas the “artificial” is that which we have ourselves brought into being. But this division not only ends up positing as irreconcilable the objects of our experience, it reinforces a false anthropological…
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Psychological Effects of Technology
That technology use has effects on our psychological well-being has become, by this point, well-known and widely recognized. But the concern is ordinarily limited to the distraction, anxiety, addiction, overstimulation, or other faults in control that appear downstream of specific technological devices or frameworks, such as smartphones, social media, or LLMs. These are real problems,…
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The Problem with Solving Technology
Everyone knows that technology troubles our lives in the twenty-first century. It distracts us, surveils us, accelerates us, isolates us, weakens our habits of attention, alters the demands and means of education, and increasingly mediates in our relations to both one another and to reality itself. The natural response is to ask: how do we…
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Retrospect: Fate and Freedom
A retrospective reflection on the recent Philosophical Happy Hour concerning fate, providence, and the limits of human free choice. A few brief reflections derived from our recent Philosophical Happy Hour on Fate: 1. Many people use the term to avoid responsibility for not only their own actions, but even for having to think about the…
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Retrospect: Resolving the Difficulties of Consciousness
A retrospective reflection on our Philosophical Happy Hour on Consciousness. Many of these themes will be discussed in depth at our upcoming conference in September. Learn more here. Our Philosophical Happy Hour conversation concerning “consciousness” (held 10 June 2026) and spanning more than two hours covered a great many particular topics: the distinction between “being…
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Retrospect: On the Question of Beauty
On 3 June 2026, we engaged in a nearly 2-hour conversation concerning beauty. A few highlights, conclusions, and elaborations: 1. Beauty is necessarily encountered first through the senses. It is also, in our experience as human, always connected somehow to a sensory experience, even if the object greatly exceeds what sense alone can provide. Mathematics,…
