It has been one year since I officially started this Selling Plato project. My YouTube channel just reminded me of its 1st birthday, and a couple coupons from my logic course just expired.

To celebrate this anniversary, I am giving away an entire year of my college-level Introduction to Logic course, worth $360. To enter, just forward this email to at least one person and CC or BCC info@sellingplato.com. The more forwards, the more chances to win. But first…

You’re reading newsletter #53, which means there are 52 newsletters before this one, each sent out every Thursday (or in this case Friday, because of a delay with Teachable).

The initial idea behind Selling Plato was based on looking around at the philosophy world, observing how bad professional philosophers typically are at communicating their work and interests to non-philosophers, and wanting a space and community that bridges the gap between the vast, valuable, but difficult philosophical literature, and the non-philosopher who hasn’t been exposed much to that world.

I wanted to ask, What is the best way to bridge that gap?

In the beginning, I took the approach most philosophers think is going to have obvious appeal to the broader population: “Look at all the things you care about and engage in; philosophy also cares about and engages them too, but on a deeper level…SEE?”

But I soon realized that’s like a fitness expert trying to convince someone to run by saying, “Hey, I see there that you already walk around and pick things up sometimes. Come to my gym where we do the same thing, just a little faster, longer, and with heavier things!”

Not very appealing. There’s a categorical difference that’s hard to explain between ordinary, daily life, and getting a little more hard core with something like fitness, logic and philosophy, psychology, theology, economics, etc.

Whatever bridge gets constructed between the intellectually frictionless, ordinary world of knowledge claims, ethical judgments, and evaluating art on the one hand, and the intellectually high-friction world of epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics, needs to account for the large gap between those two worlds.

I didn’t account for that. It was something I had to learn the hard way.

I used to think philosophy would be most appealing if we deemphasized its level of difficulty. I’m now starting to think that not only does that approach give a distorted picture of the discipline, the kind of community I would like to attract actually likes the challenge that philosophy presents. Requiring yourself to think deeply on a regular basis will naturally spill over into practical areas of life where thinking deeply gives you an edge.

When I look back on the past year at this project, still in its infant form, I mostly feel gratitude that you would opt in to hearing about these kinds of things I'm interested in on a regular basis. Thank you for your replies, and your comments when I connect with you elsewhere. Here's one thing I'll ask of you in closing, as a reminder to myself as well:

Be generous if you can in your likes, subscribes, and comments. For people who put time into composing words, videos, podcasts, social media posts, etc., the simplest things like comments and likes genuinely do make a big difference. If you think something is good, a simple "This is good" comments takes 7 seconds and means a lot.

It reminds us that these efforts are received by real people, and the simplest ping back from the digital ocean lets us know there are at least some people out there who share these common interests.

So if you haven't already, it would mean a ton if you subscribe to my young, year-old YouTube channel. I have more plans for it coming this summer, and subscribing means you're the first to know.

Or if you prefer listening, I moved the podcast host to Spotify, which offers some cool features, and you can listen to the podcast on your favorite app, not just through Spotify. So check it out there and subscribe.

And even if you don't win the giveaway, you can take my self-guided Introduction to Logic course anytime, for however long you need, at a reasonable monthly rate.

Thanks for a good year.

Until next time.

Jared

This Week's Free Philosophy Resource:

Title: Enacted appreciation and the meta-normative structure of urgency​

Author: Elliot Porter

Reading Level: Upper-level undergraduate

Ever wondered what makes something urgent, and whether that should prioritize and compel action? Me neither, but now I'm curious. Check out the free article for more. You should know that the journal it's in, Analysis, focuses on shorter philosophy articles. Edmund Gettier's famous 3-page article, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" (answer:no) was in a 1963 issue of Analysis.

Missed a week?

You can access all previous newsletters on my Creator Profile here.

If you like listening to just audio in the car, on a run, or while you're supposed to be working, subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode:

If you like watching the conversation, subscribe, and the latest episode will show up in your feed. (Extra credit: like whatever videos you watch if you genuinely like what you're hearing.)

Take a sec to follow us on

X: https://x.com/sellingplato​

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@selling.plato​

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sellingplato/​

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sellingplato​

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sellingplato​

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@sellingplato​
​

🏛️ If you're ready to get started learning logic, I offer a low-cost, subscription-based course. You can try it free for a week and see what you think:

Selling Plato's Dialogues

If you think someone else will like this Dialogues newsletter, please forward it along to your friends and family!

If you received this email as a forward, click to subscribe!

​​​​​​

113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​