• Wittgenstein on Knowing and Doubting
    Jul 18 2025

    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

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    18 mins
  • Thoreau on Walking
    Jul 16 2025

    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.


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    15 mins
  • Freud on Slips of the Tongue
    Jul 12 2025

    Today's Daily 15 is an excursion into one of Freud's first introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. In the lecture, Freud asks whether slips of the tongue, misplacements, or seemingly random forgettings, in fact, have a sense or a meaning or an interpretation.


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


    Citation: Freud, Sigmund, and James Strachey. “II Parapraxes.” In Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York: Norton, 1977.

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    16 mins