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	<title>Civic Studies &#187; Philosophy</title>
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		<title>is your consciousness a stream?</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35739</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35739#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:45:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35739</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I recommend do-it-yourself (DIY) phenomenology. It is good for mental health to attend closely to our own experience, especially the ambiguous aspects of our inner lives, such as how we experience the will, the past, or our relationship to our own bodies. We should think about what we find when we introspect. The goal is [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35739">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>people as clusters of attention</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35640</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35640#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 May 2026 12:26:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Artificial intelligence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Buddhism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[contemporary ethics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Attention is endangered. It is what Silicon Valley has learned to capture and commoditize. It is what LLMs pretend to offer by speaking in the first-person singular, often in a sycophantic voice. It is what my iPhone takes from me. It is what Donald Trump constantly demands. To understand why our attention should be valuable [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35640">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://civicstudies.org/2026/05/18/people-as-clusters-of-attention/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Teaching Skepticism in Kyiv and Nablus</title>
		<link>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35526</link>
		<comments>https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35526#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2026 15:02:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ukraine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35526</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a new piece by me in Public Seminar: &#8220;Teaching Skepticism in Kyiv and Nablus.&#8221; It&#8217;s partly autobiographical (discussing my visits to Ukraine and the West Bank in 2025) and partly philosophical. I argue that skepticism supports compassion and commitment, when they might seem opposed. It begins: In 2025, I gave lectures and classes [&#8230;] <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=35526">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://civicstudies.org/2026/04/16/teaching-skepticism-in-kyiv-and-nablus/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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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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		<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>
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		<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>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://civicstudies.org/2025/12/17/in-praise-of-john-florio/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<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>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://civicstudies.org/2025/10/29/from-empathy-toward-compassion/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<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>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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