The Book of Human

What I Believe, Part 2 I've covered the philosophical underpinning, so let's talk application.  There's obviously a lot more to Kant's philosophy than what I wrote about in my last post, but I covered the parts that are important to me.  There are two big takeaways from all that: first, any rule you live by should be one you wouldn't mind everyone living by (meaning any action you justify taking should be one you would accept someone else doing to you), and second, every person is an end, not just a means.  The second part is a little complicated, but essentially, every person deserves to be dealt with as if they had worth in and of themselves and not as objects in your personal universe that only have worth in relation to their value to you. It's a simple idea that can be a little tough to put into simple language. So that's it.  That is the basis of how I navigate this crazy world, and how I evaluate another person's words and deeds.  Everythin...

What I Believe, Part One I've had a number of people tell me I should start a blog.  I don't know if that's a good reason to actually start a blog, but I do a lot of thinking and it would be useful to nail down some of these thoughts.  Inviting comment from others is a good next step. I plan to discuss many topics here, so the first thing I want to do is lay out exactly how I look at the world. First, I took the title for this blog from a series of books that were a great influence on me at a young age.  I just wish the original author actually applied some of the ideals from those books in his own life. The most important thing to remember is that we all have some basic structure we apply to the world and what we expect from it.  Philosophy calls this worldview or paradigm or Weltanschauung, if you're feeling fancy (it's just worldview in German). It's the basis of any philosophy because it defines what you think the universe looks like and the rule...