Member-only story
Following in Socrates’ steps: from natural science to moral philosophy
Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a scientist. Early on, an astronomer. Family lore has it that such decision was reached when I was five years old, while watching the Apollo 11 Moon landing with my grandmother. (Interesting that I didn’t go for the more obvious thing: being an astronaut.) Carl Sagan influenced me when I was in middle school, and the 1976 landing of the Viking probes on Mars seemed to definitely settle my goals: I would become a planetologist!
But gradually, in high school, I became more and more enamored with biology, and eventually I pursued an academic career in evolutionary biology. Which worked out pretty well, resulting in four technical books and 88 technical papers over a span of over two decades.
Then, as I have recounted elsewhere, a mid-life crisis — both professional and personal — hit and I decided to shift focus. I went back to graduate school and got a PhD in philosophy, and ever since I’ve published in my new chosen field, both in philosophy of science and, more recently, in applied philosophy (chiefly, Stoicism). That also worked out pretty well, with three technical books and, so far, 75 technical papers. Plus an increasing number of books for the general public.
