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	<title>Civic Studies &#187; Philosophy</title>
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		<title>living life as a story</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35270</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35270#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Feb 2026 16:36:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Continental philosophy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35270</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thesis: It is better to live as if one&#8217;s life were a story, yet many people cannot live that way. A conventional story has a finite number of named characters, many of whom know many of the rest. These characters have constraints and limitations, but they also face at least some consequential choices. The choices [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35270">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>a vivid sense of the future</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35195</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35195#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:32:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Continental philosophy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35195</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My conception of the relatively distant future is almost empty. How things will be in 20 years, or 50&#8211;I have no idea. I am not motivated or inspired by any such vision. Walter Benjamin would not approve. He concludes his &#8220;Theses on the Philosophy of History&#8221; with these words: We know that the Jews were [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35195">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://civicstudies.org/2026/02/06/a-vivid-sense-of-the-future/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>The Way of Skepticism</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35037</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35037#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Jan 2026 14:32:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Buddhism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Continental philosophy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Greek philosophy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35037</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here is a pitch for a book that I have finished drafting, with the title The Way of Skepticism: In 2025, I was invited to give philosophy lectures in Kyiv, Ukraine (on the day of the third-worst bombardment in the war so far) and then at two Palestinian universities in the occupied West Bank. In [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35037">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://civicstudies.org/2026/01/05/the-way-of-skepticism/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>in praise of John Florio</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35021</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35021#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Dec 2025 20:00:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shakespeare & his world]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35021</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I find myself nearly finished writing a book whose hero is Michel de Montaigne. In the manuscript, I quote him many times. I have read large swaths of his Essays in M.A. Screech&#8217;s translation, which is learned and reliable (and good English prose). I translate the passages that concern me most. But sometimes I also [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35021">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>why policy debates continue</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35016</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35016#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2025 17:38:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[science, technology and society]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35016</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m at Stanford today to discuss a paper, Policy Models as Networks of Beliefs. After circulating my draft, I realized that the following is really my argument. &#8230; We use mental models to think about and discuss contested questions of policy. Worthy models typically have these features: I believe this account supports a pluralistic, polycentric, [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35016">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://civicstudies.org/2025/12/12/why-policy-debates-continue/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>from empathy toward compassion</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34660</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34660#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2025 17:27:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Greek philosophy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34660</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The English words empathy, sympathy, and compassion are used inconsistently; a dictionary will not sort them out.* For this discussion, I will posit the following definitions: Against sympathy Let&#8217;s say that I am angry or otherwise suffering. I may want you to empathize, sympathize, and feel compassion for me. I may want you to feel [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34660">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>gratitude and the sublime</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34654</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34654#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Oct 2025 15:58:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Buddhism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34654</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Let&#8217;s define a sublime experience as one that is dramatically better than life as usual, since life involves suffering&#8212;at least in part and over the long run. I doubt that sublime experiences reveal a truth: that everything is redeemed. Nor are they false, mere fantasies of people who cannot face reality. Rather, they are part [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34654">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://civicstudies.org/2025/10/24/gratitude-and-the-sublime/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Freud on mourning the past</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34566</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34566#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2025 14:55:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34566</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In 1915, Sigmund Freud wrote a short essay entitled &#8220;Transience.&#8221; Just over a century later, during the Coronavirus pandemic, the philosopher Jonathan Lear wrote &#8220;Transience and Hope&#8221; about returning to Freud&#8217;s essay in a time of COVID-19, the climate emergency, and the resurgence of authoritarianism. Now, Lear has passed, adding one more layer of pathos [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34566">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://civicstudies.org/2025/10/06/freud-on-mourning-the-past/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>consider the octopus</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34528</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34528#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2025 15:53:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Greek philosophy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34528</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ancient Greek members of the Skeptical School taught methods or habits that helped people to live better. One method involved pondering how different the world might seem to different animals, considering that other species have diverse types of eyes, ears, and tongues; preferences and aversions; and perhaps whole senses unknown to us. Skeptics said that [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34528">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://civicstudies.org/2025/09/29/consider-the-octopus/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>the politics of nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34443</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34443#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 17:24:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[revitalizing the left]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34443</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I believe Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. coined the phrase &#8220;politics of nostalgia&#8221; in a 1955 article in which he observed, &#8220;Today, we are told, the bright young men are conservatives; the thoughtful professors are conservatives; even a few liberals, in their own cycle of despair, are beginning to avow themselves conservatives.&#8221; This article is light but [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=34443">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://civicstudies.org/2025/09/16/the-politics-of-nostalgia-just-isnt-what-it-used-to-be/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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