New Long-Form Article Out Today
What happens to the contemplative intellect when the reality of its objects is denied? Romanticon publishes my piece "Theōria and the Disappearance of Form"
Philosophy
The Base Camp.
Adam Robbert on natural philosophy, contemplative practice, and the metaphysics of the good.
Recent essays
27 of 27A Request for Your Patronage
I’m turning on paid subscriptions and opening new opportunities for commissioned work, but I am keeping all posts freely available to everyone.
Dissertation Defense Video + Digital Essay
Video from my dissertation defense. I was happy to see a few dozen students, faculty, and alumni show up to the event, many of them participating in the Q&A after the examination. I didn\u2019t ask all who were present if they\u2019d be up for me posting the f…
Askēsis & Perception
Notes from my dissertation defense
Humanities Guy Tries Claude Design
I set the new tools to work on the tyranny of awful Word files
Links Miscellanea
A few recent talks, videos, write-ups, and response pieces
Perceptual Learning and the Necessity of Form
A certain reading of Plato inflected on the idea of affordances.
Practice in Still Life 9: The Shape of Thought to Come
An essay on immanence, transcendence, practice, and the problem of nihilism
What I Read This Year
A list of books and essays in the world of scholarship that changed my thinking and writing in 2025
From Teleology to Procedure
On John Rawls’s claim that pluralism requires procedural justice absent metaphysical claims, and my rejoinder that procedure may be a civic form of a substantive conception of the good
Found to Constructed Orders
On How, in Charles Taylor’s Reading, the Practices of Participation in Plato and Augustine Are Transformed in Descartes into the Construction and Examination of an Inner Order of Representations
Disputations 3: Contemporary Natural Philosophy Needs a New Theory of Forms
This is the third in our new disputations series on Substack Live, featuring Matthew David Segall, Jacob Given, and yours truly
On the Good as "Beyond Being"
A brief exegesis on a much commented upon passage in Plato's Republic
Toronto Talk
Full transcript and video below of my talk for the Toronto Society, September 24, 2026.
Practice in Still Life 8: The Desert Philosopher
An introduction to Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345–399 AD), and his teachings on afflictive and virtuous thinking, put into the service of contemplation, transformation, and spiritual protection.
Speaking in Toronto
I’ll be in Toronto giving a talk on September 24 as part of the Toronto Society's Viaduct speakers series for this fall. Details and tickets below.
Practice in Still Life 7: The Craft of Contemplation
An investigation into philosophy and contemplative prayer through the works of Dionysius the Areopagite and the anonymous fourteenth-century English author of The Cloud of Unknowing
Disputations 2: The Desire for Truth is the Desire for Justice
This is the second in our new disputations series on Substack Live, featuring Pedro Brea, Jacob Given, and yours truly
The Practice of Bergson’s Intuition
Henri Bergson makes clear that philosophy is upheld by transformations in perception, but we could do more to make those practices explicit. The handbooks of the religious traditions may show us how.
Thinking is Creating
A description of thinking, via negativa, using Henri Bergson’s account of memory and perception—a thinking enabled by ekstasis, theōria, and poēsis.
Practice in Still Life 6: Thinking as Gathering
The Art and Asceticism of Thought in St. Augustine and St. Gregory of Nyssa, with commentary from Martin Laird
Disputations 1: Attention is First Philosophy
Discussing my essay "Attention is First Philosophy" with responses from Matthew Segall and Jacob Given on Substack Live
The Practice of Synthesis
A look at Kant's transcendental philosophy as a contemplative discipline, showing how a priori structures and faculties can enable the cultivation of perception
The Art of Attention
An interview on the Tusk & Quill Podcast
The Sounding Line
Below is the video and written notes from my recent talk on Practice in Still Life at The Alembic in Berkeley, CA, June 25, 2025.
Attention Is First Philosophy: A Live Book Event in Berkeley, CA
I'll be speaking about Practice in Still in Life at the Alembic in Berkeley, CA on the evening of June 25 from 7:00–8:30 pm. Books will be available for purchase. RSVP info and more details below.
The Grammar of Being
An afterthought to last week's essay: On the ways in which being can be said to be, with recourse to Heidegger and Eckhart.