https://www.huffmanwrites.org/tags/philosophy/Recent content in Philosophy on Huffman WritesHugoenThu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/unstuck-summary/Sat, 23 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/unstuck-summary/Executive summary of Unstuck: a Stoic framework for getting your life back on track.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/montessori-stoicism-synthesis/Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/montessori-stoicism-synthesis/An exploration of the conceptual convergence between Maria Montessori's pedagogical framework and Stoic philosophy, specifically regarding agency, self-mastery, and the cultivation of the will.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/on-proportion-summary/Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/on-proportion-summary/Executive summary of On Proportion: the lost discipline of matching response to scale.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/fountain-pens/Mon, 08 Jun 2026 05:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/fountain-pens/A comparative history of the two great fountain pen traditions — German engineering discipline and Japanese artistic precision — and what they reveal about craft, culture, and the examined life.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/misaligned/Sun, 31 May 2026 06:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/misaligned/A comprehensive look at Misaligned — the most personal book Philip Huffman has written, and the one closest to an autobiography. A late ADHD diagnosis, a first marriage, a career built on containment, and the hard work of building something different.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/a-life-made-whole/Sun, 31 May 2026 05:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/a-life-made-whole/A comprehensive look at the second Huffman book — its origins in accumulated experience, its Stoic framework, and why it exists for the reader who suspects they are not as whole as they appear.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/sand-county-almanac-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/sand-county-almanac-summary/A summary and review of Aldo Leopold's foundational argument for a land ethic — the extension of moral consideration beyond humans to the broader community of life.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/astrophysics-for-people-in-a-hurry-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/astrophysics-for-people-in-a-hurry-summary/A summary and review of Neil deGrasse Tyson's brisk tour of the cosmos — what it gets gloriously right and where its brevity becomes a liability.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/braiding-sweetgrass-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/braiding-sweetgrass-summary/A summary and review of Robin Wall Kimmerer's braiding of Indigenous botanical knowledge and Western science into an argument for gratitude as an ecological practice.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/brocas-brain-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/brocas-brain-summary/A summary and review of Carl Sagan's wide-ranging essay collection on science, pseudoscience, the romance of discovery, and the nature of the inquiring mind.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/cosmos-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/cosmos-summary/A summary and review of Carl Sagan's magnum opus — a thirteen-chapter journey through the history of science, the scale of the universe, and the fragile improbability of human consciousness.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/democracy-in-america-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/democracy-in-america-summary/A summary and review of Alexis de Tocqueville's prophetic diagnosis of democracy's strengths, pathologies, and the specific dangers it carries within it.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/ego-is-the-enemy-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/ego-is-the-enemy-summary/A summary and review of Ryan Holiday's argument that ego — not circumstance, not competition, not bad luck — is the primary obstacle to a meaningful life and lasting work.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/eichmann-in-jerusalem-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/eichmann-in-jerusalem-summary/A summary and review of Hannah Arendt's report on the Eichmann trial and her controversial, essential argument about the banality of evil.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/mans-search-for-meaning-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/mans-search-for-meaning-summary/Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning — a summary and critical review of his account of survival in the Nazi concentration camps, the logotherapy he built from it, and what it shares with Stoic philosophy.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/meditations-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/meditations-summary/Marcus Aurelius's Meditations — a summary and critical review of his private Stoic journal, the core philosophical arguments it makes, and what it means to aspire to virtue while consistently falling short.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/not-for-profit-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/not-for-profit-summary/A summary and review of Martha Nussbaum's argument that democracy cannot survive the gutting of humanities education.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/pale-blue-dot-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/pale-blue-dot-summary/A summary and review of Carl Sagan's meditation on humanity's place in the cosmos, inspired by the most important photograph ever taken.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/pilgrim-at-tinker-creek-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/pilgrim-at-tinker-creek-summary/A summary and review of Annie Dillard's Pulitzer Prize-winning meditation on attention, wonder, and what the natural world reveals about the nature of existence.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/7-habits-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/7-habits-summary/Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — a summary and critical review of his character-ethic framework for personal effectiveness, and an honest look at what still holds up thirty-five years later.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/art-of-war-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/art-of-war-summary/A summary and review of Sun Tzu's foundational text on strategy, deception, and the discipline of knowing yourself before you engage the enemy.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/demon-haunted-world-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/demon-haunted-world-summary/A summary and review of Carl Sagan's argument for skepticism as a daily practice and the baloney detection kit as a survival tool.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/ethics-of-ambiguity-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/ethics-of-ambiguity-summary/A summary and review of Simone de Beauvoir's existentialist ethics — freedom, responsibility, and the refusal to escape the ambiguity of being human.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/power-of-now-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/power-of-now-summary/A summary and review of Eckhart Tolle's case for present-moment awareness — what it gets right, where it inflates, and why it matters anyway.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/unsettling-of-america-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/unsettling-of-america-summary/A summary and review of Wendell Berry's argument that the industrialization of agriculture is not merely an economic or environmental problem but a cultural and moral one.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/thinking-fast-and-slow-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/thinking-fast-and-slow-summary/Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow — a summary and critical review of his System 1 and System 2 framework, the cognitive biases they produce, and where the research holds up under scrutiny.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/thus-spoke-zarathustra-summary/Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/thus-spoke-zarathustra-summary/A summary and review of Nietzsche's most ambitious and most misread work — a philosophical prose poem about the death of God, the will to power, and what comes after.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/the-roots-of-violence/Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/the-roots-of-violence/Violence doesn't begin with the act. It begins long before, in roots most of us refuse to examine.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/what-926-gigabytes-taught-me-about-proportion/Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/essays/what-926-gigabytes-taught-me-about-proportion/On the temptation to reach for the sledgehammer, and the discipline required to use the scalpel instead.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/stoic-backgammon-live/Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/stoic-backgammon-live/Stoic Backgammon is now live on Amazon. Strategy, philosophy, and play.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/stoic-backgammon-summary/Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/stoic-backgammon-summary/Executive summary of Stoic Backgammon: every roll is a small encounter with fate, every move is a decision made with incomplete information.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/letters-summary/Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/letters-summary/Executive summary of Letters: truth without outcome, speech without guarantee.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/misaligned-summary/Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/misaligned-summary/Executive summary of Misaligned: when the map is wrong, discipline becomes damage.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/the-stoic-cgm-summary/Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/the-stoic-cgm-summary/Executive summary of The Stoic CGM: using data to govern the body without surrendering to it.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/a-life-made-whole-summary/Sun, 12 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/a-life-made-whole-summary/Executive summary of A Life Made Whole: essays on holding yourself together when experience threatens to fragment.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/stoicism/the-stoic-investor-holding-steady-when-the-market-panics/Wed, 01 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/stoicism/the-stoic-investor-holding-steady-when-the-market-panics/Holding steady when the market panics: a Stoic approach to investing.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/investing/a-comparison-of-discount-brokerages/Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/investing/a-comparison-of-discount-brokerages/A comparison of discount brokerages for retired and new investors.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/the-stoic-citizen-summary/Thu, 18 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/summaries/the-stoic-citizen-summary/Executive summary of The Stoic Citizen: virtue as a public discipline, not a private consolation.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/digests/digest-for-september-12-2025/Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/digests/digest-for-september-12-2025/Weekly digest: observations, recommendations, and reflections from September 12, 2025.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/stoicism/the-virtue-of-temperance/Wed, 14 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/stoicism/the-virtue-of-temperance/The lost virtue of temperance: why restraint matters more in an age of excess.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/stoicism/the-virtue-of-temperance-holding-the-line-when-everything-pulls-you-off-it/Mon, 12 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/stoicism/the-virtue-of-temperance-holding-the-line-when-everything-pulls-you-off-it/Holding the line when everything pulls you off it: the virtue of temperance.https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/civics/when-justice-bends-power-privilege-and-the-price-of-fairness/Wed, 07 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffmanwrites.org/posts/civics/when-justice-bends-power-privilege-and-the-price-of-fairness/When justice bends under power and privilege, society pays the hidden price.