My (evolving) philosophy of life, and why it may help you too

[image: Thales of Miletus, left, and Socrates of Athens, right, representing the two ways of doing philosophy]

I practice philosophy in two very different ways. On the one hand, I’m a professional, academic philosopher. I have a PhD in the field and write very technical articles on philosophy of science (here is a complete list), aimed at a narrow audience of similarly trained colleagues. There is nothing unusual about this, it’s just what academics, not only philosophers, do.

On the other hand, since a midlife crisis-triggered awakening back in 2014, I also practice philosophy as a way of life, particularly inspired by the Greco-Roman Hellenistic philosophies, especially Stoicism and Skepticism. In this sense, anyone can (and arguably should!) be a philosopher, no PhD required.

As it turns out, this dual way of philosophizing is as ancient as philosophy itself. We find the practice of philosophy as a type of inquiry into the nature of the world in Thales of Miletus, the first philosopher of the western tradition. Philosophy as a way of life, by contrast, is epitomized by Socrates, the gadfly of Athens. In the rest of this essay I wish to talk about my Socratic side, leaving my Thales-inspired one for another time.

For the first several years of my attempt at living philosophically I have practiced Stoicism. I needed the structure that it provides, as well as the feeling of working within a…