𝚽𝚽𝚽 - 0 - Introduction

Happy New Year!

I’m sure for many the completion of this revolution around the sun comes as a welcome advent to escape the weariness and gloom of 2020. The virus, the lockdown, the election, the natural disasters, etcetera, etcetera––the (im)perfect conglomeration of negativity coupled with the absence of our normal avenues of repose like concerts or...well...social interaction on almost any level.

Yet it obviously hasn’t been entirely bleak, and hopefully it will provide a great foil by which to compare the coming year so that our blessings might be acknowledged evermore so.

As they say, “It can’t get any worse, right?”

...right?

All cheekiness aside, a new year accompanies new resolutions, novel mindsets and plans aimed to better those embarking on them. I am normally not one for publicly attempting these resolutions, but I thought it a fun project to try given the nature of this particular one.

Some of you are probably already aware given my recent Facebook post that I am wanting to undergo a sort of “spiritual reconstruction.” It is something I’ve been planning for some time and I thought no better time to start it than with the beginning of the new year.

It started with the basic goal of wanting to reread the Old Testament and study more extensively what it had to say about some of the positions that I currently hold. But then I decided, “Why stop there? Why not take it even further back?”

So I settled on taking it all the way back.

The goal I have in mind for this project is to essentially start from the most foundational epistemological questions and gradually work my way upwards towards a noetic structure that I can be completely confident in. As I said in my post, I’m quite comfortable with many of the things I’ve learned over the past few years through my interests in philosophy and apologetics, but there is something satisfying about approaching things from a purely bottom-up perspective that other methods simply don’t supply.

What this means is that, to the best of my ability, I will be asking questions that presuppose as little as possible and then perusing the relevant literature in an attempt to come to the most reasonable conclusion. These will be questions like, “What is truth?” or “What does it mean to be a person?” or “Does God exist?” As I discuss the answers to these questions, they will ideally provide building blocks upon which future beliefs may be supported, as well as give me a much more exhaustive awareness of the contemporary debates in each topic.

What I am not trying to do is etch out a scholarly systematic philosophy, but I do at least want to be as thorough as I can without being overly pedantic. It is very likely that I will not be as comprehensive as some would like me to be in this survey. That is completely fine, but I am posting all of this on here so that my thoughts may be interacted with and that my assortment of intelligent friends will be given the opportunity to provide pushback on the ideas I discuss. This is not an echo chamber, this is a colosseum, and whichever gladiator (i.e., hypothesis) is truly more dominant will be the one who emerges victorious. So even if it is in private, please feel free to talk with me about what I put on here.

The title of this series will be “First Friday Philosophy” and, once the question of “Does God exist?” is posed, will be accompanied by an independent series called “Third Thursday Theology.” Of course, the days of the month on which each of these will be posted will correspond to the titles, today being the first friday of January (and also the first ever post on the first day of the first month, so I guess that makes this FIRST FIRST FIRST First Friday Philosophy).

Today’s post is basically a copout, where I’m just further introducing to you exactly what my plan is and how I will go about bringing it to fruition. Even now, I’m staring blankly at my computer screen as I work on my dissertation so I know for a fact that I would not have the mental wherewithal to dedicate the appropriate level of thought to a blog-length philosophical topic. For that, you will simply have to wait until February.

But it will be worth it.

And remember: πάντα δοκιμάζετε (examine everything).