If reality is relational and in a constantly fluid state, how does a micro-philosophy remain relevant without becoming dogmatic or obsolete?
2. When you speak of “your reality,” do you believe reality itself is subjective, or are you referring to a personal interpretation of a shared ontological field?
3. If Nietzsche’s “plunge in all directions” signals the collapse of orientation, how does one arrive at clarity without denying the very chaos he was naming?
4. Does the pursuit of clarity risk neutralizing the productive role of existential tension in personal growth and philosophical maturity?
5. In what way does your framework account for the unchosen, the systemic, or the traumatic; those aspects of reality that resist clarity and personal agency?
These are incredible questions and very helpful for me to think about.
The micro-philosophy framework is not supposed to build in or assume any substantive views about what the world is like. It is just the framework that you fill in with your beliefs -- like the belief that reality is relational and fluid. That would just be an atomic belief about the world that is part of your micro-philosophy.
It is true that the framework makes certain assumptions. For example, it assumes that our beliefs can be clearly or helpfully expressed in language and represented to us in a way that improves our lives. That might not really be possible, but then that would end up being an atomic belief of your micro-philosophy: that truth cannot be fully captured or represented through concepts.
I am trying to design the framework to be maximally flexible and adaptable.
The micro-philosophy is supposed to be a system that represents your beliefs about various core categories, so yes it is subjective. In more advanced stages, I plan to introduce methods for determining whether one's subejctive beliefs are true or false, but at this stage the focus is just clarifying what a subject believes.
Nietzsche certainly thought of himself as having achieved some kind of clarity on the nature of truth and life through developing his perspectivism. But yes, depending on one's view of reality, the degree of clarity a single human being can attain may be very limited.
Regarding trauma and difficult aspects of our lived experience, there is a difference between things that are in principle unable to be understood or clarified, and things that are very difficult to understand. In general, I believe that trauma can eventually be understood, but it is very difficult and resistant to easy clarification.
Thanks so much for these awesome questions. I will have to think about them more as I continue to develop this concept.
- What kind of world am I in? And how do I relate to it?
- Which things are valuable in this world?
- How should I act in order to realize those values?
As someone who supports organisations, groups and individuals with this (meta) process, I gotta say, boiling it down to these three (.5) questions is brilliant. Much more could be said about this, but let me leave that and that.
What I'm particularly interested in is how these are enacted over time, ideally in / through / as something like communities / ecologies of practice. I may have missed context here (very possible), but have you done much work on how these questions can be practices / lived in more relational settings?
Thanks Nate. I would love to hear more about your work sometime and how this connects with what you have done.
I have taken mostly an individualized approach to micro-philosophy so far, but the idea is to build out from individuals to communities. The basic idea is that if you truly understand your own values and beliefs it becomes easier to connect with others. I think most divisions that exist between people are rooted in ignorance rather than genuine disagreement.
Jessica Bohm has done some excellent work that anticipates some of what I will need to say eventually regarding communities and ecologies of practice.
Would love that mate. Let's find time to chat, whenever the stars align logistically.
Very much agree re divisions rooted in ignorance. There's so much nuance to this, including (something that immediately comes to mind) stuff like Cohen's work on perfectionism, other cardinal fallacies and guiding virtues in LBTC. But the general idea feels about right.
Jes is doing brilliant work. One of my favourite authors of our day.
This connects to Beautiful (Value), Good (Ethics), and True (World) which Ken Wilber extrapolated to his I, We, & It (and later “Its”) so I think you’re on the right track.
I am not very familiar with Ken's work, but I know a lot of people online are big fans. It is interesting to hear that him and I have arrived at a similar framework independently.
This is probably explained by the fact that my writings has emerged from a all-inclusive study of the history of ideas, philosophies, religions, and worldviews.
“Even religious people who have a prescribed purpose are suffering from the loss of community.”
I resonate with the latter part—there is indeed a deep and growing sense of communal erosion across much of the Western global north. Whether many people ever truly experienced “community” is another question entirely. But it was the phrase “prescribed purpose” that gave me pause.
I’m curious what exactly is meant here. Is the implication that the religious sense of purpose is externally imposed and perhaps unexamined? Or somehow less authentically felt? The word prescribed stood out—perhaps unintentionally—as slightly diminishing.
Given that the roots of religion include religare (to bind again) and religio (to reread, to contemplate), it seems to me that religion—at its best—is both a source of communal cohesion and of reflective purpose. So I’d love to understand more clearly what was meant. I ask in a spirit of genuine curiosity and with full respect for the complexity of the subject.
I think mine meets all the criteria, and provides a robust general framework. But it won't be for everyone, that's for sure. https://esnomeo.substack.com/ Thanks for your contributions here.
Well, since a micro-philosophy is meant to be personal, it definitely will not always be for everyone. Thanks for sharing I will take a look at what you came up with.
I apologize for the crassness of sharing my own writing here... but you're getting at something which I talk about in my latest essay. That we need people to do the work to reconstruct all the parts of our lives the "The Old World" solved for us (e.g. religion, profession, community) through our own exploration, which is a wide open frontier ("The New World").
That's awesome. I would love to see what you came up with if you want to dm me about it. I would be happy to give some feedback.
Regarding the changes, I wouldn't view what you have done as becoming outdated. The changes I am making are actually shifting the starting point of building a micro-philosophy one step backwards. But, eventually as one progresses in building their micro-philosophy, it will get more and more complex and they will end up having to do the work you have already done at some point.
The idea is to move from a kind of basic belief inventory to a more structured and coherent system that becomes increasingly refined, personalized, and effective.
This piece marks a thoughtful evolution—from ideas as solitary sparks to philosophy as shared soil. From a heliogenetic perspective, that’s the real update: not just writing about systems, but beginning to live and think within them. Ideas don’t scale by force; they take root, shaped by their environment, nourished by attention, grown in rhythm with reality.
The future of philosophy isn’t bigger platforms or better takes—it’s relational intelligence. The kind that notices the sun, the seasons, the signals between things. That trades ego for ecology. Certainty for coherence.
In that sense, Micro Philosophy 2.0 isn't just a personal shift.
It’s an invitation to think with the world, not just about it.
Questions:
If reality is relational and in a constantly fluid state, how does a micro-philosophy remain relevant without becoming dogmatic or obsolete?
2. When you speak of “your reality,” do you believe reality itself is subjective, or are you referring to a personal interpretation of a shared ontological field?
3. If Nietzsche’s “plunge in all directions” signals the collapse of orientation, how does one arrive at clarity without denying the very chaos he was naming?
4. Does the pursuit of clarity risk neutralizing the productive role of existential tension in personal growth and philosophical maturity?
5. In what way does your framework account for the unchosen, the systemic, or the traumatic; those aspects of reality that resist clarity and personal agency?
These are incredible questions and very helpful for me to think about.
The micro-philosophy framework is not supposed to build in or assume any substantive views about what the world is like. It is just the framework that you fill in with your beliefs -- like the belief that reality is relational and fluid. That would just be an atomic belief about the world that is part of your micro-philosophy.
It is true that the framework makes certain assumptions. For example, it assumes that our beliefs can be clearly or helpfully expressed in language and represented to us in a way that improves our lives. That might not really be possible, but then that would end up being an atomic belief of your micro-philosophy: that truth cannot be fully captured or represented through concepts.
I am trying to design the framework to be maximally flexible and adaptable.
The micro-philosophy is supposed to be a system that represents your beliefs about various core categories, so yes it is subjective. In more advanced stages, I plan to introduce methods for determining whether one's subejctive beliefs are true or false, but at this stage the focus is just clarifying what a subject believes.
Nietzsche certainly thought of himself as having achieved some kind of clarity on the nature of truth and life through developing his perspectivism. But yes, depending on one's view of reality, the degree of clarity a single human being can attain may be very limited.
Regarding trauma and difficult aspects of our lived experience, there is a difference between things that are in principle unable to be understood or clarified, and things that are very difficult to understand. In general, I believe that trauma can eventually be understood, but it is very difficult and resistant to easy clarification.
Thanks so much for these awesome questions. I will have to think about them more as I continue to develop this concept.
- What kind of world am I in? And how do I relate to it?
- Which things are valuable in this world?
- How should I act in order to realize those values?
As someone who supports organisations, groups and individuals with this (meta) process, I gotta say, boiling it down to these three (.5) questions is brilliant. Much more could be said about this, but let me leave that and that.
What I'm particularly interested in is how these are enacted over time, ideally in / through / as something like communities / ecologies of practice. I may have missed context here (very possible), but have you done much work on how these questions can be practices / lived in more relational settings?
Thanks Nate. I would love to hear more about your work sometime and how this connects with what you have done.
I have taken mostly an individualized approach to micro-philosophy so far, but the idea is to build out from individuals to communities. The basic idea is that if you truly understand your own values and beliefs it becomes easier to connect with others. I think most divisions that exist between people are rooted in ignorance rather than genuine disagreement.
Jessica Bohm has done some excellent work that anticipates some of what I will need to say eventually regarding communities and ecologies of practice.
Would love that mate. Let's find time to chat, whenever the stars align logistically.
Very much agree re divisions rooted in ignorance. There's so much nuance to this, including (something that immediately comes to mind) stuff like Cohen's work on perfectionism, other cardinal fallacies and guiding virtues in LBTC. But the general idea feels about right.
Jes is doing brilliant work. One of my favourite authors of our day.
This connects to Beautiful (Value), Good (Ethics), and True (World) which Ken Wilber extrapolated to his I, We, & It (and later “Its”) so I think you’re on the right track.
I am not very familiar with Ken's work, but I know a lot of people online are big fans. It is interesting to hear that him and I have arrived at a similar framework independently.
This is probably explained by the fact that my writings has emerged from a all-inclusive study of the history of ideas, philosophies, religions, and worldviews.
Although Wilber started with three, he expanded into four quadrants.
Since your three map to his initial three, would you consider Systems part of your micro-philosophy framework?
I — Beautiful/Aesthetic/Subjective
We — Good/Moral/Intersubjective
It — True/Empirical/Objective
Its — Systems/Functional/Interobjective
https://integrallife.com/good-true-beautiful/
This line caught my attention:
“Even religious people who have a prescribed purpose are suffering from the loss of community.”
I resonate with the latter part—there is indeed a deep and growing sense of communal erosion across much of the Western global north. Whether many people ever truly experienced “community” is another question entirely. But it was the phrase “prescribed purpose” that gave me pause.
I’m curious what exactly is meant here. Is the implication that the religious sense of purpose is externally imposed and perhaps unexamined? Or somehow less authentically felt? The word prescribed stood out—perhaps unintentionally—as slightly diminishing.
Given that the roots of religion include religare (to bind again) and religio (to reread, to contemplate), it seems to me that religion—at its best—is both a source of communal cohesion and of reflective purpose. So I’d love to understand more clearly what was meant. I ask in a spirit of genuine curiosity and with full respect for the complexity of the subject.
I think mine meets all the criteria, and provides a robust general framework. But it won't be for everyone, that's for sure. https://esnomeo.substack.com/ Thanks for your contributions here.
Well, since a micro-philosophy is meant to be personal, it definitely will not always be for everyone. Thanks for sharing I will take a look at what you came up with.
Well thanks very much! I hope you find it interesting and welcome any feedback.
Glad to hear you're still with us! It's interesting to see how this is evolving.
Thanks Kenton.
I still owe you a one-on-one after I submit the grades for my courses. Looking forward to discussing the work you have put in.
I apologize for the crassness of sharing my own writing here... but you're getting at something which I talk about in my latest essay. That we need people to do the work to reconstruct all the parts of our lives the "The Old World" solved for us (e.g. religion, profession, community) through our own exploration, which is a wide open frontier ("The New World").
I like your work. Keep going.
https://newsletter.thewayofwork.com/p/frontier
Hey Rick,
Thanks for sharing your work. I like the "Old World"/"New World" framework. I look forward to checking it out.
Thanks for update. Sounds like exciting changes!
I just did your first at atomic belief exercise yesterday.
Do you have any advice on how much further I can go before the exercises will diverge too much from your next iteration? Or best just to wait?
Looking forward to following along as this unfolds.
James,
That's awesome. I would love to see what you came up with if you want to dm me about it. I would be happy to give some feedback.
Regarding the changes, I wouldn't view what you have done as becoming outdated. The changes I am making are actually shifting the starting point of building a micro-philosophy one step backwards. But, eventually as one progresses in building their micro-philosophy, it will get more and more complex and they will end up having to do the work you have already done at some point.
The idea is to move from a kind of basic belief inventory to a more structured and coherent system that becomes increasingly refined, personalized, and effective.
Thanks for this. Have sent you a DM!
Incredible growth Paul. Powerful ideal. I am excited for you. When I grow up I want to be just like you. You have given me new insight. Thank you.
This piece marks a thoughtful evolution—from ideas as solitary sparks to philosophy as shared soil. From a heliogenetic perspective, that’s the real update: not just writing about systems, but beginning to live and think within them. Ideas don’t scale by force; they take root, shaped by their environment, nourished by attention, grown in rhythm with reality.
The future of philosophy isn’t bigger platforms or better takes—it’s relational intelligence. The kind that notices the sun, the seasons, the signals between things. That trades ego for ecology. Certainty for coherence.
In that sense, Micro Philosophy 2.0 isn't just a personal shift.
It’s an invitation to think with the world, not just about it.