Philosophy · The Love of Wisdom
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Philosophy
Ask better questions.
Philosophy is not a shelf of dead opinions to memorise. It is a set of tools for telling the difference between what you know, what you merely believe, and what you absorbed from the people around you without noticing.
Philosophy · The Love of Wisdom
Why Philosophy
The questions are old. Your answers to them are doing work in your life whether or not you have examined them.
Most of what you believe about fairness, success, mind, and meaning arrived before you had a chance to check it. Philosophy is the practice of going back and checking: stating a claim precisely, finding the assumption it rests on, and asking what follows if that assumption is false.
That habit is not confined to seminar rooms. It is the difference between reading a headline and reading an argument, between having an opinion and being able to defend one, between a life shaped by other people's defaults and one you have actually chosen.
We do this through dialogue and close reading, not lectures. You will do most of the talking, and most of the revising.
Philosophia · The Love of Wisdom
Self-Paced Primers & Treatises
Start with our complimentary 7-page primer on Kant & Hegel, or read how transcendental structure and dialectical motion apply to modern systems.
Who I Teach
No philosophy background is required for either of these, and neither one assumes you have read any of the canon.
Students Overwhelmed by Abstraction
Struggling with a philosophy course? We break the hard passages down — Plato's Forms, Kant's transcendental idealism — into claims you can state, test, and argue with.
The Incurably Curious
You want to think seriously about free will, consciousness, or what makes a life go well, and you would rather do it in conversation than alone with a book.
What We Can Study
Five areas. We usually begin with whichever one your own questions already point at, rather than working through them in order.
01 · DISCIPLINE
Ethics & Morality
What does it mean to live a good life?
Core Questions: What makes someone a good person? How should we make moral decisions? Is morality the same everywhere, or does it depend on culture?
What we'll explore: We'll study different approaches to ethics, from Aristotle's focus on character and virtue to Kant's universal moral principles. We'll compare utilitarian ethics (maximizing happiness) with rule-based approaches, and apply these ideas to modern issues like bioethics, technology, and ethical entrepreneurship.
02 · DISCIPLINE
Logic & Reasoning
How do we think clearly and argue effectively?
Core Skills: Learn to think clearly and analyze arguments effectively. These skills improve how you write, study, and make decisions by helping you spot good reasoning from mere persuasion.
What we'll practice: We'll work on both formal logic (symbolic reasoning, proofs) and everyday argument analysis using real examples from politics, media, and academic writing. You'll learn to identify fallacies, construct valid arguments, and build strong cases with evidence.
03 · DISCIPLINE
Metaphysics
What is the fundamental nature of reality?
Big Questions: What is reality? Do we have free will? How are mind and body related? What is time? These questions challenge our basic assumptions and connect to everything from quantum physics to AI research.
What we'll explore: We'll investigate questions about existence, consciousness, and reality by looking at how different philosophers have approached these mysteries. From ancient debates about permanence versus change to modern discussions of personal identity, consciousness, and whether neuroscience challenges free will.
04 · DISCIPLINE
Political Philosophy
How should we organize society and government?
Central Issues: What is justice? What's the best form of government? What are our rights and responsibilities as citizens? These questions drive every political system and social movement, from ancient Athens to today's debates about privacy, inequality, and global governance.
What we'll examine: We'll study foundational texts from Plato's Republic to Locke's natural rights, Rousseau's social contract, and Marx's critique of capitalism. We'll explore tensions between individual freedom and collective welfare, examine different forms of democracy, and discuss contemporary issues like racial justice and how technology affects sovereignty.
05 · DISCIPLINE
Epistemology
What can we know and how can we know it?
Fundamental Questions: What is knowledge? How do we tell the difference between belief and knowledge? Can we trust our senses? These questions affect every field and practical decision, from scientific research to evaluating AI outputs.
What we'll investigate: We'll examine different theories of knowledge, from Plato's rationalism to empiricist challenges by Locke and Hume, through Kant's synthesis and Hegel's dialectic. We'll apply these frameworks to contemporary challenges in science, media literacy, and debates about truth and objectivity.
What We Actually Do
Six habits, practised repeatedly. The content changes; the shape of the work does not.
Critical Thinking
Analyze arguments using real examples — op-eds, political speeches, advertising — and learn to spot fallacies and persuasive technique.
Philosophical Texts
Read and interpret foundational works, starting with Plato's Apology, where Socrates defends his philosophical life in ways that still land.
Ethical Dilemmas
Use thought experiments like the Trolley Problem to test moral intuitions against the frameworks that claim to explain them.
Logic & Argumentation
Formal and informal logic, syllogisms, validity and soundness — the machinery underneath a good argument.
Thought Experiments
Philosophical puzzles and hypothetical scenarios used as instruments: change one variable and see what your theory is committed to.
Philosophical Writing
Crafting clear, rigorous arguments of your own, and revising them until the prose stops hiding the thought.
Key Thinkers We Discuss
Six eras, from the pre-Socratics to decolonial and Filipino philosophy. Not a list to worship — a set of interlocutors to argue with.
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Pilosopiyang Pilipino
The decolonial track includes Filipino philosophy on its own terms: Roque Ferriols insisting that philosophy could be done in Filipino rather than translated into it, Leonardo Mercado asking what a Filipino philosophy would even look like, and Emerita Quito working out the philosophy of the person from a Filipino vantage.
It is a useful test of everything above. If the tools only work in the language they were built in, they were never as universal as they claimed.
"Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir."
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Who Read Whom
Ideas travel. This map traces the lines of influence between the thinkers above — useful for seeing which arguments were answers to which.
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How the Sessions Run
One hour a week, one-to-one. We read a short text, you tell me what you think it says, and then we find out where that reading breaks.
Goals
We start by naming what you want — to pass a course, to argue better at work, or to finally read the texts you have been avoiding.
Interests
Then we find the questions you actually care about, and let them choose the reading rather than the other way round.
The plan
A written sequence of texts and problems, revised about once a month as your questions change.
The work
Close reading and structured argumentation, with written exercises when you want them.
Bring a question
The first call is thirty minutes and free. Bring something you have been unable to settle, and we will see whether the conversation is worth continuing.
Schedule Free Intro Calltyler@meresophist.xyz