Why You Need A Micro-Philosophy (If You Want To Become An Independent Thinker)

A Micro-Philosophy Is The Foundation Of Your Intellectual Freedom

The Importance Of Independent Thinking

If you are serious about changing your life, you need to learn how to think for yourself.

There is no amount of books, videos, or podcasts that will magically change your life for you.

I have studied philosophy for over 15 years, read thousands of books, completed a PhD, and wasted a significant amount of time falling into the trap of believing that by consuming more information, even high quality information, I will all of a sudden be different.

It just doesn’t work that way.

Trust me when I tell you, what you are missing is not more information, or the correct information, or quality information.

What you are missing is your own perspective, framework, worldview, or project from which and through which you can interpret information and apply to the problems of your life in a meaningful way.

In order for new information to truly impact your life, it needs to be coupled with action.

But if you don’t think for yourself, if you don’t have a point of view through which new information can be processed in a way that is relevant to you, then there will always be a gap between learning and action.

You will read hundreds of books, watch thousands of videos, listen to endless podcasts and never be able to take that information and do something with it.

You need to have your own ideas about how to take the things you have learned and apply them to your life in a meaningful way.

The problem is that no one ever teaches us how to think for ourselves.

We do not learn philosophy, logic, critical thinking, or creative writing in school.

Even if you major in philosophy in college (which is way overpriced), you can spend years reading other people’s ideas, mastering other people’s philosophies, without ever really reaching your own conclusions and developing your own worldview.

This is why there are so many people in the world who know a bunch of information, have incredible technical skills and abilities, but utterly lack depth or critical thinking.

Outside of school, it is also true that there are very few resources that can help us learn how to think for ourselves.

This is unfortunate, because we all need as much help as we can get when we are starting out on this journey.

Why?

Because almost every aspect of human society is arranged to discourage and disincentivize us from thinking independently.

In his famous essay, “What Is Enlightenment?”, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote:

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude!(“Have courage to use your own understanding!”) — that is the motto of the Enlightenment”

Intellectual maturity requires courage.

Courage to think without the guidance of another.

Courage to disagree with the status quo.

Courage to be different.

Thinking for yourself is always going to be harder than doing pretty much anything else.

This is why people find writing to be more difficult than almost any other activity.

Most people are terrified of the blank page.

They are terrified to discovery their worst fear — that they have nothing to say.

It is much easier to go along with what your friends, family, and community believe than to try articulate and defend your own ideas.

Thinking for yourself requires work.

You need to find ideas that the people around you don’t talk about. You need to challenge your mind to expand in new directions. You need to wrestle with hard questions without getting the answers right away.

You need to learn how to learn on your own.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was younger, I read a book called How To Read A Book. I remember how many people would see what I was reading and either laugh or say something like “Why do you need to read a book about that? Just read”.

People just assumed that because they knew how to read, that they knew how to read well. Maybe I didn’t need to read a book about how to read books, maybe that was a waste of a few hours. But at the time, I wasn’t willing to take that risk. I wasn’t willing to spend years of my life thinking I knew how to be good at a fundamental skill like reading, only to discover I was doing it all wrong.

That book ended up being one of the most important books I have ever read.

The Unexamined Life

During the trial which ultimately led to his conviction and death in 399 BCE, Socrates told the jury that he would rather die than stop practicing philosophy, saying that “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato, Apology)

But if the examined life is the harder road, why should we choose it?

Was Socrates wrong?

I think there are plenty of people in the world who spend very little time examining their life, but still have a life worth living. I think the lives of plants and animals are worth living, even if they lack self-awareness or self-examination. On that point, I think Socrates was wrong.

But here is the thing.

You don’t just want a “life worth living”.

No one would voluntarily choose to a life worth living, if they had options.

What you want is to live a good life.

You may even want to live the best life.

But, if you don’t think for yourself, how do you know that the life you are living is the best life?

Imagine living your entire life without really knowing who you are and what you believe in.

Imagine living your entire life believing in something that turns out to be false, or that wasn’t actually good for you.

No one would choose to live that life if they knew this ahead of time.

If you never stop to think for yourself, to construct your own identity and worldview, this is what will happen.

Some people approach life as a journey that doesn’t require much thinking, just time.

The idea is that if you live long enough, you will naturally accumulate wisdom through experience.

Some human beings do naturally become more wise by living on Earth for long enough.

Some don’t.

Either way, I would hope that you don’t want to have to wait until you are old to potentially become wise.

I would hope that you want to understand yourself and how you fit into the world while you still have time to change the course of your life.

You don’t want to live an entire life and realize one day (or maybe never realize), that everything you thought, cared about, and believed was simply a by-product of where you grew up, the people you hung out with, and the time period during which you lived.

A lot of people think they know themselves and what they stand for by the time they reach adulthood.

But have you really examined your beliefs deeply?

Have you ever written about them?

Have you challenged them?

Very often we live through premade categories or identities because they allow us to avoid having to think for ourselves. They allow us to believe that we know who we are and what we stand for.

We say things like: “I am a computer science major”, “I am an athlete”, I am a Christian”, and so on.

These ready-made value systems are too generic to ever fit you perfectly.

You, me, and everyone else is so much more than any category or collection of categories can explain.

You are an entire world unto yourself, infinitely complex, utterly unique, and deserving of a lifetime of exploration and contemplation.

I am not saying that you should avoid pre-existing belief systems entirely. I actually don’t even think that this is possible.

What I am saying is to always make them your own in some way.

Be a Christian, but in your own may.

Be a Physicist, but read Russian literature.

There is are no shortcuts to becoming what you are.

In order to become yourself, you have to spend at least some time examining and studying yourself.

Examining and evaluating other people’s ideas can be difficult at times.

But examining and challenging your own ideas is one of the hardest things you will ever do.

There is no other way to gain control over your life. There is no other way to have genuine freedom over your own thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Giving up on this journey means giving up on your freedom.

It means allowing other people, social media, advertisements, entertainment, biology, culture, history, and politics to control you.

Maybe you are okay with that, but if you have made it this far, I suspect this is everything you are fighting against.

The reason I created the concept of a micro-philosophy is because I have been guilty of everything I just described at various points in my life.

Why You Need A Micro-Philosophy

It is for this reason that I created the concept of the micro-philosophy.

I have been guilty at various points in my life of falling into all of the patterns described above.

I have been guilty of these things despite becoming an expert in philosophy.

I spent more time studying the ideas of history’s greatest thinkers than I did developing my own ideas, my own beliefs.

I came to realize that no matter how much I knew about philosophy, it wouldn’t give me a deeper understanding of myself unless I did something with that knowledge.

But it isn’t easy.

There are not any courses that I know of that explicitly teach you how to do this.

That is why I created this newsletter and the concept of a micro-philosophy.

I created them to help you, and myself, overcome this massive problem.

In order to do this, I am going to publish actionable guides, resources, templates, and thought pieces every week that are specifically aimed at helping as many people as I can develop their own ideas and self-understanding.

This newsletter is for those who want to change, self-actualize, and grow. It is for people who have the courage to question the world around them and to question themselves. The philosophical life is a commitment to follow reason wherever it leads. Even if you don’t like it.

Doing this well makes it possible to live and act in alignment with a clear and consistent set of values and principles that define who we are.

What Is A Micro-Philosophy?

A micro-philosophy is a concise, coherent, and personalized framework of beliefs, values, and principles that guides an individual’s understanding of the world, their approach to life, and their specific actions.

Unlike expansive philosophical systems, or “macro-philosophies”, that try to provide a universal explanation of reality, a micro-philosophy is meant to help you clearly articulate and understand your position in the world.

It is a foundation from which you can look at the world in a way that is completely unique to you.

The 4 Elements Of A Micro-Philosophy

A micro-philosophy combines 4 key elements into a unified system that gives clarity and purpose to our lives.

The 4 elements of a micro-philosophy are:

• Atomic Beliefs

• Values

• Principles

• Actions

#1 Atomic Beliefs

Atomic Beliefs are the fundamental building blocks of your micro-philosophy.

Every atom has a core (nucleus) that is surrounded by a fringe (a cloud of electrons).

Likewise, Atomic Beliefs consists of core beliefs and fringe beliefs.

For example, you might hold a core belief that “The universe operates according to natural laws”, or that “The universe must have a creator”. A related fringe belief might be “The creator of the universe is the Christian God”.

#2 Values

Values are fundamental principles or standards that guide human behavior, decision-making, and judgment.

Without values, we would have no reason to care about anything.

Values represent what you consider to be important, worthwhile, and good in life. They often serve as the foundation and explanation for our most deeply held principles and our actions.

Some examples of common values are:

• Freedom

• Justice

• Honesty

• Power

A micro-philosophy will help you both clarify which values you hold and how they relate to one another, so that they can focus your thought and action towards your ultimate goals.

#3 Principles

Principles are fundamental guidelines or rules for action that reflect and align with one’s values, beliefs, and philosophical commitments. They serve as a bridge between abstract ideals and practical behaviors, providing clear, actionable instructions for how to live, make decisions, and interact with the world.

Principles guide our behavior and decisions in real life contexts.

For example, a principle might be “Always act with honesty, even when it is inconvenient”.

Principles are grounded in your values and are meant to connect your values with the real world in an action guiding way.

For example, if you value compassion, a corresponding principle might be:

“Treat everyone with kindness, regardless of their circumstances”

Unlike values, which are general and often abstract, principles are a bridge between abstract and concrete daily life. The are neither fully general, nor fully specific, but somewhere in between.

Principles also help make sure that our actions are aligned with our values.

#4 Actions

Actions are intentional behaviors taken to achieve a specific goal or purpose. They are the tangible expression of your micro-philosophy in the real world.

When we act in a principled and controlled manner, we act on the basis of reasons that align our principles, values, and atomic beliefs.

Actions translate the abstract components of your micro-philosophy into real world outcomes that shape your life and interactions with others.

For example, if you value Honesty, and believe in the principle to “be honest, even when it is inconvenient for me”, then you will perform honest actions, such as telling the truth in a difficult situation.

Your actions take your personal principles and apply them to real world situations.

What Makes A Good Micro-Philosophy?

Not all micro-philosophies are created equal.

Someone may have a worldview or set of beliefs that fails to properly count as a micro-philosophy because it is internally contradictory, or vague.

A good micro-philosophy should have the following 4 features:

#1 Coherence:

The set of atomic beliefs, values, principles, and actions should be logically consistent.

#2 Comprehensiveness:

A micro-philosophy should be general enough to touch on various areas of human life, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and axiology.

#3 Practicality:

A micro-philosophy should be something that you can live by or put into practice.

#4 Personality: A micro-philosophy should be completely unique and represent who you are and what you believe.

If you are able to build a good micro-philosophy, it will give you the ability to think and act in a more unified and self-assured way.

This does not mean that one’s micro-philosophy should be treated as dogma or the final word on life’s biggest questions.

Instead, it is better to think of it as a starting point from which you can achieve a deeper level of self-awareness (and hence other-awareness). As you grow and learn, your micro-philosophy will likely change over time as well.

What’s Next? (Start Building Your Micro-Philosophy)

Now that you have a general grasp of what a micro-philosophy is, why it matters, and what its core components are, it is time to start building version 1.0 of your own micro-philosophy!

Over the next several weeks, you will receive a series of newsletters specifically aimed at teaching you how to build your micro-philosophy one element at a time.

Each newsletter will be part of a complete quickstart course designed to help as many people as possible build version 1.0 of their micro-philosophy.

In next week’s newsletter, titled “How To Identify Your Atomic Beliefs”, I provide 3 actionable steps aimed at helping you discover and develop your atomic beliefs, which form the raw material from which you will construct a set of values and actionable principles.

If you can’t wait until then, you are invited to join my brand new Circle community in which you can discuss all things philosophy and micro-philosophy.

It is completely free, all you need to do is sign up for Circle with the link below.

Here it is:
https://ousia.circle.so/join?invitation_token=520cc50a7d53790bb600ac864a725fe3b74327cf-19d21635-0407-4d2b-a12d-2fc1235f0beb

See you in there.

-Paul