Mind Your Metaphysics!
New name, same great taste.
I started writing this substack 6 months ago. I knew I wanted to write about the intersection of various things: theology and philosophy broadly speaking, but especially philosophy of mind, including from both the western (Greek) and eastern (in this case, Indian) traditions. I also wanted to use a phenomenological lens whenever possible. So I chose the name Phenomenology, East & West.
Though I did try to focus on phenomenological methods and insights initially, in the months since, you may have noticed that I don’t always engage phenomenology. My discussion around the use of the term “God”, as well as my mini-auto-biography on theological anthropology, and my recent series on voluntarism and nominalism—none of these centered phenomenology (though admittedly my discussion of consciousness was much more phenomenological).
I’ve also come to realize that, for many, “phenomenology” is a strange, new, even intimidating word that simply doesn’t mean much. One of my primary goals here is to make philosophy accessible, and yet here I had this rather inaccessible word, right in the title.
As this has all dawned on me, I’ve been thinking over the last week or so about changing the title of this publication to one that is less intimidating and perhaps more broadly indicative of the topics I address. I came up with at least 2 dozen ideas, but quickly dismissed each of them in turn. But finally, I arrived at “Mind Your Metaphysics.”1 I feel that this title accomplishes a lot more than the previous one: I talk a lot about philosophy of mind, and the word “mind” is right there. “Metaphysics” is a bit of a big word, but my sense is that it’s far less unfamiliar to most folks than “phenomenology”, and it covers both philosophical and theological topics. I even manage a slight pun, with “mind” functioning as a verb in the title, even as it reminds one of its noun meaning as well. Perhaps most of all, the title conveys the idea that we need to be mindful of how we think about the most important aspects of life. And that’s definitely at the core of my writing here (and I hope that’s obvious to those who read it!)
Most of all, though, my hope is that this new title will be more welcoming to new readers. That said, I want to be clear that nothing is changing about the content I am writing about!—so if you like what you’ve read so far, stick around! (If you don’t like what you’ve read so far, I can only apologize profusely and thank you for having stuck around anyway.) Later this week I have a piece on the philosophical deficiencies of LLMs coming out, and I have a big spreadsheet full of theological, philosophical, metaphysical, and yes even phenomenological topics to discuss in the coming weeks and months.
So: the more things change, the more they stay the same: New name, same great taste. Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll continue to do so!
The domain name for this substack will change to mindyourmetaphysics.substack.com, though all past links should continue to work, and if you navigate to the old domain, it should automatically redirect you.