Biographical Essays

In these essays, I explore some of the thinkers who have most influenced me, through their lives as much as through their ideas.

Philosophy is never entirely separable from the philosopher: Socrates chose to die for his principles, Epicurus lived in his Garden, and Nietzsche turned heartbreak into Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

To understand an idea more deeply, and remember it more vividly, it often helps to understand the person who lived it—or struggled to.

Ancients

India

The Life of the Buddha: The Prince Who Escaped the Palace — The Extraordinary Life of the Buddha

The Greeks

Aspasia: The Woman Who Slapped Socrates — If Aspasia Taught Socrates, Western Philosophy Begins with a Woman

How Ugly Was Socrates? — What Socrates’ Sex Life Tells Us About His Appearance

Why Socrates Chose to Die — Plato’s Apology: Why the Father of Philosophy Refused to Save His Own Life

The Sophist Gorgias and the Magic of Words — If You Love Words, Read On

A Life in Ideas: Plato — The Remarkable Life of the Man Who Wired Your Mind

Meet Aristippus: The Ultimate Hedonist — The Freest and Funniest Philosopher of Antiquity

A Life in Ideas: Aristotle — How the Son of a Court Physician Became the Most Influential Philosopher in History

Aristotle in Paradise — Sun, Sex, and Sea: How Aristotle Invented Science on Lesbos

The Philosopher Who Took Philosophy Too Far — Diogenes the Cynic and the Philosophy of the Dog

Epicurus and the Arithmetics of Pleasure — Learning to Master the Hedonistic Calculus

The Romans

A Life in Ideas: Cicero — Did Rome’s Greatest Orator Live Up to His Own Ideals?

The Great Stoics: Seneca — Did Rome’s Richest Man Live Up to His Philosophy?

The Great Stoics: Musonius Rufus — The Exiled Stoic Who Taught Epictetus

The Great Stoics: Epictetus — The Slave Who Inspired an Emperor

The Great Stoics: Marcus Aurelius — Did Stoicism Make Marcus Aurelius a Better Emperor?

Marcus Aurelius Never Meant You to Read the Meditations — Marcus Aurelius Wrote the Meditations for Himself—Here’s Why

Moderns

Early Modern and Enlightenment

A Life in Ideas: René Descartes — His Life, Character, and Philosophy

A Life in Ideas: Baruch Spinoza — His Life, Character, and Philosophy

A Life in Ideas: Jean-Jacques Rousseau — His Life, Character, and Philosophy

A Life in Ideas: David Hume — His Life, Character, and Philosophy

How Friendship Transformed Kant’s Life — Getting to the Real Immanuel Kant

Nineteenth Century

Schopenhauer: The Funniest Philosopher?— You Will Laugh and Cry

Can Reading Make You Stupid? — Schopenhauer on the Benefits of Skipping School

Schopenhauer’s Hedgehog Dilemma — Finding the Right Distance Between Self and Others

Nietzsche’s Threesome — The Love Triangle That Ended in Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Twentieth Century

A Life in Ideas: Sigmund Freud — Freud and the Discovery of the Unconscious

A Life in Ideas: Carl Jung — Psychiatrist, Mystic, Visionary

A Life in Ideas: Viktor Frankl — One Man’s Search for Meaning