Questions

All questions 140

• Is Kelvin's love for the simulated Hari in Solaris redemptive or a form of self-deception?

  A look at how one philosophy podcast reads the central ambiguity of Tarkovsky's Solaris: whether loving a copy can be genuine or is only a way of hiding from real life.

• How should the ambiguous ending of Tarkovsky's Solaris be interpreted?

  A look at why the film's final image resists a single reading, and what that ambiguity is doing philosophically.

• How does Tarkovsky's Solaris differ thematically from Stanislaw Lem's novel?

  A look at how a film about human guilt grew out of a novel about the limits of understanding a truly alien mind.

• What is the significance of copies and reflections as a theme in Tarkovsky's Solaris?

  A look at how Tarkovsky builds Solaris out of copies within copies, and what that structure suggests about art, memory, and love.

• What can Africana philosophy teach philosophy as a discipline generally?

  A look at how debates within Africana philosophy raise questions about what philosophy itself is.

• How does Tarkovsky's view of humanity contrast with Stanley Kubrick's in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

  A look at how a conversation on Solaris frames Tarkovsky's faith in human striving against Kubrick's more cynical, externally dependent vision of transcendence.

• What is Africana philosophy and how does it differ from African philosophy?

  A look at how Africana philosophy came to name a category broader than African philosophy, and why that distinction matters.

• How did British and French colonialism shape different styles of African philosophy?

  A look at how colonial-era training split modern African philosophy into analytic and continental styles, and what united its practitioners anyway.

• What maxims does Epictetus recommend keeping ready at hand?

  A look at the three quotations Epictetus tells his students to hold close, and what they teach about accepting what is not up to us.

• What does Epictetus mean by keeping death before your eyes daily?

  A look at Handbook 21 and why Epictetus thinks a daily awareness of death, not fear of it, keeps you free.

• According to Epictetus, how should duties be determined between family members?

  Epictetus grounds family duty in the relation itself, not in how well the other person plays their part.

• What does Epictetus mean by richer does not mean better?

  Epictetus separates what you have from who you are, and shows why wealth can prove more property without proving more worth.

• What does Epictetus say about the price we must pay for social invitations and favor?

  Epictetus explains why being passed over for a dinner invitation or a compliment is not an injustice, using the plain economics of a market stall.

• Why does Epictetus tell aspiring philosophers to expect ridicule?

  Epictetus warns beginners that starting philosophy invites mockery, and explains why holding steady through it is itself the practice.

• Why does Marcus Aurelius say we should trust the governing reason of the universe?

  Marcus grounds his trust in the claim that the reason ordering the cosmos is neither ignorant nor careless, so what it distributes cannot be a real evil.

• How does Marcus Aurelius argue that we are citizens of the world?

  Marcus Aurelius reasons from human nature itself to a double citizenship, one political and one universal.

• According to Marcus Aurelius, how can the mind turn obstacles into help?

  Learn what Marcus Aurelius meant when he wrote that the mind converts every hindrance into fuel for its own activity.

• Why does Marcus Aurelius say a false opinion is like jaundice or a mad dog's poison?

  A look at how Marcus uses two bodily illnesses to explain why anger comes from a distorted judgment, not from the world itself.

• What does Marcus Aurelius mean by stripping impressions bare of exalting words?

  A look at Meditations 6.13, where Marcus practices seeing food, wine, and status for what they physically are, stripped of the language that inflates them.

• What does Marcus Aurelius mean that the soul is dyed by its thoughts?

  A look at Meditations 5.16, where Marcus compares repeated thoughts to a dye that colors the character of the mind.

• What does Marcus Aurelius say about the emptiness of fame and reputation?

  Marcus Aurelius argues that a good name outlives you only as noise, and that reputation is not the kind of thing that can make your life better or worse.

• How does Marcus Aurelius advise us to respond to those who wrong us?

  A one-line note from Marcus Aurelius's private journal on the only real form of revenge.

• What does Marcus Aurelius mean by living with the gods?

  A look at Meditations 5.27, where Marcus defines living with the gods as accepting your lot and following your own reason.

• How does Marcus Aurelius suggest handling other people's wrongdoing?

  Marcus Aurelius answers his own anger at bad people by retreating into judgment, not by changing the world outside him.

• Why does Marcus Aurelius say we should rise willingly in the morning?

  Marcus Aurelius argues that getting out of bed is your first daily act as a rational, social being, not a chore to resent.

• What does Marcus Aurelius say about overcoming the fear of death?

  Marcus Aurelius argues that death is neither good nor bad, and that clinging to life longer gains you nothing.

• How does Marcus Aurelius say we should respond when someone wrongs us?

  You will learn Marcus Aurelius's own answer to being wronged: leave the other person's disposition to him, and attend to your own.

• What is the meaning of the phrase you are a little soul carrying a corpse?

  A one-line memento mori from Epictetus, recorded by Marcus Aurelius, that puts the body in its place without teaching contempt for it.

• What does Marcus Aurelius mean by saying the ruling mind turns obstacles into fuel?

  Learn how Marcus Aurelius's image of a fire consuming what is thrown on it explains the Stoic claim that a well-ordered mind uses whatever happens to it.

• According to Marcus Aurelius, in what five ways does the soul do violence to itself?

  A passage from the Meditations lists five ways we injure our own character, none of them physical.

• Why does Marcus Aurelius say human beings are made for cooperation?

  Learn why Marcus Aurelius treats cooperation as a fact of human nature, not a nice sentiment, and what that means for how you meet difficult people.

• Why does Marcus Aurelius say a man must stand erect and not be kept erect by others?

  A look at Meditations 3.5, where Marcus ties uprightness to self-command rather than to the support other people or things provide.

• What did Marcus Aurelius learn from his adoptive father Antoninus Pius?

  A look at Meditations 1.16, where Marcus records the specific traits of character he watched and absorbed from Antoninus Pius.

• How does Marcus Aurelius describe the parts that make up a human being?

  A look at Marcus Aurelius's three-part picture of the self and why he says only one part deserves your attention.

• What does Marcus Aurelius mean by saying wrongdoers act through ignorance?

  A look at Meditations 2.1, where Marcus argues that people who wrong you do so because they mistake what is good and evil, not because they are simply bad.

• How does Epictetus say we should respond when someone insults or wrongs us?

  Epictetus argues that a person who insults you is not attacking something of yours, and that this fact should change how you respond.

• How does Epictetus use the metaphor of an actor in a drama to describe our role in life?

  A short lesson from the Handbook on why you do not choose your part, only how well you play it.

• What is the Stoic teaching of the two handles in Epictetus's Handbook?

  A short teaching from Epictetus on choosing how to grasp what happens to you, and why that choice is up to you even when the event is not.

• Why does Epictetus say you should not call yourself a philosopher?

  A look at why Epictetus tells students to act on their principles instead of announcing them.

• Why does Epictetus say to call a dead child or spouse 'returned' rather than 'lost'?

  Epictetus reframes loss as a return to correct a false judgment about what was ever yours to keep.

• What are the three possibilities Marcus Aurelius considers about the order of the universe?

  A look at Meditations 12.14, where Marcus tests his resolve against three rival pictures of how the cosmos might be run.

• What does Marcus Aurelius mean by saying everything is opinion?

  A look at Meditations 12.22 and what Marcus Aurelius means when he says your judgments, not events, are what disturb you.

• What does Marcus Aurelius say about living only in the present moment?

  A look at Meditations 12.3, where Marcus argues that the present is the only part of life you actually have, and what that means for how you carry the past and the future.

• What does Epictetus advise about desire and aversion for beginners?

  Epictetus tells the beginner to suspend desire almost entirely and redirect aversion only toward what is truly up to them.

• Why does Marcus Aurelius say death at its proper time is not an evil?

  A look at how Marcus Aurelius reasons from the nature of activity itself to the conclusion that a life's ending, when it comes in season, is not a harm.

• What does Marcus Aurelius say about anger being a form of weakness?

  Marcus Aurelius argues that anger is not strength but a kind of surrender, and that mildness is the truly manly quality.

• What does Marcus Aurelius say actually disturbs us, if not other people's acts?

  Marcus Aurelius locates the source of anger and grief not in what others do but in the judgments we form about it.

• What are Marcus Aurelius's nine or ten rules for dealing with someone who offends you?

  A walk through the nine considerations Marcus lists in Meditations 11.18 for facing someone who has wronged you.

• Why does Marcus Aurelius say wrongdoers act involuntarily?

  A look at how Marcus Aurelius grounds patience with others in the Stoic claim that no one does wrong on purpose.

• What is the ruling faculty and why does Marcus Aurelius call it invincible?

  A look at Meditations 8.48, where Marcus argues that the mind which wants only what it chooses cannot be beaten.

• How should you respond to someone who wrongs you, according to Marcus Aurelius?

  Marcus Aurelius argues that expecting wrongdoers not to exist is expecting the impossible, and that this recognition should make you milder toward the person who wronged you, not angrier.

• What does Marcus Aurelius mean when he says trouble is in your opinions, not outside you?

  A look at Meditations 9.13, where Marcus locates all his trouble not in events but in his own judgments about them.

• What does Marcus Aurelius say about being a part of the whole universe?

  Marcus Aurelius argues that seeing yourself as a part of the whole universe changes what you expect from life and how you treat other people.

• What does Marcus Aurelius say about the natural sympathy binding rational beings together?

  Marcus Aurelius argues that rational beings share one intelligent soul, the way all living things share one air and one light.

• How does Marcus Aurelius say we should relate to our own opinions to avoid pain?

  Marcus Aurelius traces the sting of pain back to the judgment we add to it, and shows what changes when we withdraw that judgment.

• What does Marcus Aurelius say about facing death naturally?

  Marcus Aurelius treats death as one more operation of nature, not a catastrophe, and asks you to wait for it the way you would wait for any other natural change.

• What does Marcus Aurelius mean by sticking to the first appearances?

  Learn why Marcus Aurelius told himself to report only what he saw, not the judgments he added to it.

• What does Marcus Aurelius say is the only true good for a human being?

  A look at Marcus Aurelius's claim that the only good for a person is character itself, and why he places justice, temperance, courage and freedom above everything external.

• What does Marcus Aurelius mean when he says the ruling faculty cannot disturb itself?

  A look at Meditations 7.16, where Marcus locates fear and pain not in events but in the judgments the mind makes about them.

• How does Marcus Aurelius use memento mori to curb desire for fame?

  A look at how Marcus turns the thought of death into a cure for caring what other people think of you.