Philosophy Blog
The philosophy blog was started in June 2012, and in June 2019 it had been viewed 82.000 times in 106 countries.
This is done from a constructivist, pragmatist perspective, inspired by the American pragmatist philosophers, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, among others. I try to use philosophy as a perspective for understanding present society. The focus is on dynamics: change of knowledge (invention), meaning, society, and organization.
In October 2016 the blog received the award of belonging to the top 100 philosophy blogs.

Bundles of blog
Here are bundles of items from the blog, sorted by theme. Now and then I add new pieces from the blog to the bundles.The top ten most read items
25 pieces on knowledge, truth and invention
27 pieces on ethics and morality
Eleven pieces on nietzsche, nihilism and beyond
23 pieces on self and other
6. Love, 46. Intolerance and altruism, 52. History of the self, 53. Narcissism, 54. Self interest, 55. Self and other, 56. Humanism, 57. The value of difference, 60. Nietzsche’s error, 61. Levinas: Philosophy of the other, 65. Otherhumanism, 66. The value of collaboration, 76. How much community?, 108. The self as work in progress, 121. How does love work, 122. Commitment and choice, 124. Art, love and God, 134. Notions of the self, 205. Parochial altruism, 209. Identity and altruism in networks, 233. Constructive alienation, 315. Heuristics and relationships, 321. Adaptiveness.
twenty pieces on trust
Extended November 2018
68. Trust, what is it?, 69. Sources of trust, 70. Forms of identification, 72. Uncertainty and openness, 73. Psychology of trust, 74. Roles of a go-between, 75. Horizontal control, 107. Hope and trust, 123. The destruction of distrust, 164. Trust as virtue, 196. Trust under stress, 292. The virtues of trust, 293. The rhetoric of trust, 321. Adaptiveness, 324. Perverse control, 325. A crisis of trust, 366. How to extend the boundaries of trust, 377. Trust in Japan and the US, 393. Openness, transparency and trust. 397. Power, dependence, control and trust.
Eleven pieces on evolution
27. Evolution, 28. Realism?, 29. Object bias, 30. Evolution in society, 46. Intolerance and altruism are instinctive, 82. Evolution in nature and art, 161. Play, invention and evolution, 195. The mystery of mathematics, 205. Parochial altruism, 279. the evolutionary advantage of cultural competition, 376. Will humanity survive its cultural evolution?
Thirteen pieces on puzzles in philosophy
Nine pieces on democracy, autocracy, and fascism
Twelve pieces on Eastern and Western philosophy
88. Wabi Sabi, 128. Eastern and Western philosophy, 129. What to make of East and West, 130. Comfucius, 131. Neo-Confucianism, 137. Yin and Yang, 138. Cycles of change, 139. Nietzsche and Eastern phlisophy, , 141. The soft power of Yin, 316. Intervention and laissez faire in East and West, 377. Trust in Japan and the US, 405. Yin and Yang, Mary and Peter.
20 pieces on the human condition
15. The human condition, 20. The Enlightenment, 21. Problems with the Enlightenment, 22. Romanticism, 24. Body and mind, 39. The good life, 40. Being in the world, 56. Humanism, 65. Otherhumanism, 77. Beyond Enlightenment and Romanticism, 116. Reason in the rise and fall of civilization, 197. Back to Enlightenment values?, 257. Liberal communitarianism, 309. Being involved, 313. From outcome to process, 318. Escape from routine, 320. Emergence, 328. Averson to love’s labour loss.
Eight pieces on exit and voice
Seven pieces on system tragedy
Nine pieces on time, duration, and discontinuity: Bergson, Derrida, and Bachelard
sixteen pieces on art and literature
80. Art, 81. Serenity or exuberance?, 82. Evolution in nature and art, 83. Art and nature, 84. The universal and the specific in art, 88. Wabi Sabi, 89. Aesthetic judgement, 90. Ethics and education, 91. Stability and change, art and sex, 92. Free will and literature, 120. Does reading literature produce good people?, 124. Art, love and God, 252. Hermeneutics and literature, 273. Philosophy, science, and literature, 314. Imperfecting poetry, 329. Art and hope.
Fourteen pieces on the politics of virtue
Five pieces on god and religion
Two pieces on basic income
Two pieces on robots
Fifteen pieces on identity
8. personal identity 9. cultural identity , 10. culture is not essential, 11. European identity?, 12. Tracing identity, 134. Notions of the self, 265. What is identity?, 272. How do you find your selves? 332. The curse of identity, 395. Individual and social, 412. Identity in economics, 416. The thirst for recognition, where does it come from? 417. Networks, credence and identity, 418. Identity within and between communities, 419. Essential capacity.
Five pieces on culture
Six pieces on multiple causality
Eight pieces on meaning
Eight pieces on power, Foucault
Five more pieces on Foucault
Six pieces on a way out for socialism?
Six pieces on Levinas
Three pieces on Montaigne
Five pieces on Baudrillard
Six pieces on Wittgenstein
Thirteen pieces on fallen foundations, language games and crossing cultures
Five pieces on populism
Seven pieces on Heidegger
40. Being in the world, 90. Ethics, art and education, 108. The self as work in progress, 146. Meaning nihilism, 170. Wittgenstein and Heidegger as ethical opposites, 242. What response to fascism?, 243. Heidegger and Levinas.
21 pieces on Žižek and Hegel
335. Understanding Žižek: Psychology of politics, 336. Hidden things and selves, 337. Hidden social order, 338. The Other as threat or opportunity?, 339. Authoritarianism or democracy, 340. Levels of freedom revisited, 341. Dealing with democracy, 342. Process philosophy, 344. Žižek: Beyond Lacan, 345. Žižek: Hitler abd Stalin, 346. The crisis of capitalism, 347. Žižek: Between capitalism and centralized bureaucracy, 348. Double negation of the market, 349. Democracy and marlet: are they compatible?, 350. Žižek and Devisch: understanding empathy, 351. When is tolerance tolerable, 352, Žižek: what does he want, 353. Žižek and basic income, 354, Reading Hegel, 355. The universal and its particulars, 356. Dialectics on the move. .
Seven pieces on nihilism
143. Forms of nihilism, 144. Responses to nihilism: faith, resignation, and revolution, 145. Responses to nihilism: perspectivism, 146. Meaning nihilism, 147. Beyond nihilism: Nietzsche, 148. Imperfection on the move, 149. Nietzsche as a pragmatist.
16 pieces on ontology
356. Dialectics on the move, 357. The sucess of failure, 358. Existence, 359. What things, 360. Do objects have an essence, 361. Incomplete specification, 362. Relational ontology, 363. The causality of concepts, 364. Dynamic ontology, 419. Essential capacity, 420. Types of objects, 421. Non-material objects: Research programmes and organizations, 422. Major and minor science, 423. Objects and events, 424. How things change, 425. How change is blocked, 426. Upward and downward causation.
24 pieces on pragmatism
25. Forms of truth, 26. Pragmatism, 31. Invention: How does pragmatism work?, 104. Truth as argumentation, 118. Debatable ethics, 132. Religion and pragmatism, 148. Imperfection on the move, 149. Nietzsche as a pragmatist, 168. Word as a process, 169. Truth on the move, 173. Where does argumentation stop?, 239. Ideas, action and integration, 264. Useful, warranted or workable, 274. Is pragmatism conventional?, 275. Science and politics, how different are they?. 286. Creative conflict and criticism, 309. Being involved, 313. From outcome to process, 320. Emergence, 321. Adaptiveness, 342. Process philosophy, 356. Dialectics on the move, 357. The success of failure, 396. From optimal to adaptive.
20 pieces on economics (old and new)
introduction, 387. The programme of economics, 388. A methodological sleight of hand, 389. Locality and flexibility, 390. Forms of efficiency, 391, Ethics in economics, 392, Greed and urge to manifestation, 394. Rationality and heuristics, 395. Individual and social, 396. From optimal to adaptive, 397. Power, dependence, control and trust, 398. A paradox of international trade, 399. Old and new economics, 406. Why capitalism is unbeatable, 407. Growth and the good life, 408, how universal is the good life, 409. Revival of risk and uncertainty, 410. Conditional goods, 411. Possible ends of capitalism, 412. Identity in economics.
four pieces on poetry
402. What poems do, 431. How words do things, 432. Ontology and poetry, 433. Do poems express meaning or do they produce it?