Welcome to the New Philo~soffee

Welcome!

Thank you for joining us here at Philo~soffee. If you were a visitor to our old site, you'll notice that things look a bit different now. Take some time to click around and get familiar with the new setup.

In the meantime, let me share with you a bit about our purpose and some of the new bells and whistles we've got going. We'll start with those new features and then get into the explicit goals we have here at Philo~soffee

NEW SHIT

The first big change is that the new site is built around being able to actually talk to each other. We don't want to just be posting our thoughts. The goal of Philo~soffee is to have it evolve into a community of thinkers who grow and learn through discussion and debate. To that end, we have increased the comment options, allowed for people to join a chat room, and made it possible to sign up to help spread our articles and encourage more people to join in.

We've also decided to divvy up our content by subject matter. As you are aware, some of the site's posts have been getting more openly political. But while we're getting into more applied philosophy, we don't want to ignore our interest in abstract philosophy subjects as well. So, we've split the posts up. You can go to our "All Posts" page and see everything. Or, you can head to the specific pages for General Philosophy, Current Events, or Politics.

Furthermore, you'll see that there's a forum which is conveniently named "The Forum". This gets back to that goal of communicating with one another more, instead of simply having a bunch of one-off posts. If you make a Wix account, you'll be able to log in and engage in chats with the Content Contributors and other visitors over a wider variety of subjects. You'll also be able to start comment threads of your own. And to those of who who have a lot of fun engaging on the Forum, may I recommend that you consider becoming a Content Contributor yourself some day? Think about it!

Finally, you'll see a link to The Legion. If you sign up and explicitly email us letting us know you want to be included in our updates, we'll send you an email when there are big happenings, new essays, or other situations that we want you to be aware of. All we ask is that you help boost us on social media (if you feel comfortable doing so) so that we can attract more people who want to contribute to the conversation so that we can all keep intellectually growing.

So, that's the fun new stuff. Now let's discuss the goals of this website.

OUR GOALS

What's the point of Philo~soffee? Well, to get to that, we have to ask what's the point of philosophy? I think we can break it down, broadly, into two main objectives. These are the two main ideas that fuel our work here at Philo~soffee as well.

Living in the Real World Some treat philosophy as a set of purely abstract questions, with little to no bearing on how one actually lives in the world. Until just a few months ago, I was a proud member of that camp.

But something changed. Maybe it was a slow build up of little moments, or maybe a strong enough gust of wind blew my head out of my own ass long enough for me to see clearly. Whatever the cause, I came to realize that focusing only on philosophy which does not reach back out into the world and change it is a waste of effort.

There is no shortage of trouble we face. As US citizens, we face mounting rage here at home and a political system that is clearly corrupt and divorced from all rational attempts at making the world livable, let alone better. As millennials (and I assume most of us are) we face the oncoming freight train of climate change in our lifetime, while our leaders (who will probably die long before we do, and long before the worst of the climate change effects kick in) keep blithely ignoring it because it's not their problem. As human beings, we can see - perhaps clearer now than ever before - that our global system of capitalism is fueling an irrational race towards climate and social catastrophe, all while wrecking our economy and leaving us feeling stranded and desperate.

Now, I won't pretend for a moment that one little hobby-philosophy website is going to fix those problems. But it's equally foolish to pretend like there's nothing we can do, and its simply wrong to think that part of the solution isn't better thinking about our situation. Bad thinking (and a lack of thinking) brought us all here. Only with clear thinking will we find a way out.

So, this is our little corner of the world. And here, we'll make our stand.

The first goal of Philo~soffee is for all of us to chip in and, through good faith discussion and debate, help one another figure out better ways to exist in the world. It is doable, and so we shall do it.

Thinking, for Thought's Own Sake

All that being said, there's nothing wrong with admitting that philosophy is fun. Intellectualism can be a source of great joy. It is fun to learn about interesting new ideas. It is fun to engage in good natured debate. It is fun to grow intellectually by talking to others who also value intellectual growth.

In other words, philosophy (broadly understood) can be a self-fulfilling and self-rewarding practice.This does not mean that philosophy is not also serious, or that the ideas we discuss don't potentially have real world impacts. It just means that all that is serious is not necessarily dreary or unenjoyable.

So the second goal of Philo~soffee is to have a good time. To be mentally engaged and to share interesting thoughts.

To critique one another in the name of good intellectual fun. To partake in the long, great game of philosophy.

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So, thank you for joining us. We hope that you'll stick around and grow into a talkative member. Our project is just getting started, though, and we'll need your help. Join in the conversation, or join the Legion and help us to include more people. As always, we look forward to hearing your thoughts.