Thinking Beyond Academia

Welcome to Continuum Philosophical Insight: a philosophical consulting, education, and research firm providing philosophically-informed insights outside the standard paradigms of academic practice. Welcome to philosophy for digital life.

What is the meaning of life?

Everyone asks this question and seldom, if ever, is anyone really satisfied with the answers.  Why?  It is perhaps the oldest of philosophical questions; you would think after 2600 years, someone would have—should have—found a final answer.  Maybe someone has, but we don’t recognize the answer; or, maybe, something of the answer resides in asking the question.  And maybe part of the question’s difficulty resides in learning to ask the question in the right way.

That is, questions about the meaning of life are not questions in the same way that math problems are.  There are no blank lines into which someone can write a solution which solves the problem once and for all, for all time, whenever it is asked.  Life—human life—is much too complex for that: our difficulties are not the same from one day to the next, let alone across years, decades, and generations.

Which isn’t to deny the wisdom of eras past; to the contrary, we are fools to ignore the great thinkers of those 2600 years who spent their lives struggling with the same questions we find ourselves facing today.  Questions of meaning—life, purpose, truth, goodness, justice—are pursued in countless reams of philosophical texts, from the dialogues of Plato to the disputed questions of the scholastics, from Descartes’ Meditations to Nietzsche’s polemics.

But navigating the halls of philosophical thought is no easy, straightforward, or simple task.  Where should one begin?  With Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics?  Descartes, Locke, the moderns?  Can someone pick up Martin Heidegger without having first wrestled with Kant?  Can critical theory be grasped without a phenomenological strength?

Individual Guidance

Navigating graduate school, and especially the composition and development of a doctoral dissertation, proves a daunting task: students are often left with a dazzling array of questions—theoretical and practical alike—and no one to give them answers.  Impartial, honest, and timely feedback is all too rare in the process of completing a PhD.

Though I have expertise and a specialization—having earned a Doctorate in Philosophy—I am neither an expert nor a specialist.  My academic and post-academic career has spanned a wide range of reading across disciplines (and a focus on the inherently interdisciplinary perspective achieved by Peircean semiotics), and led me to constant pursuit of questioning as a habit.  This breadth of study and development of intellectual habits has resulted in becoming a good sounding board for varied ideas.

Over the years, I have led or assisted several students through the process of writing and completing their doctoral dissertations—as well as through various other academic or intellectual projects.  I custom tailor programs to best fit your needs.

Consulting & Analysis

To be a good company today does not mean simply being a profitable one that does not violate rules (regulations, codes of conduct, compliance, etc.), but rather, it requires to be one which actively benefits the lives of all its stakeholders: customers, employees, managers, investors, the community, the environment, and so on.

Through a process of theoretical research, conceptual distillation, and subsidiarist implementation, Continuum aids companies in becoming good: not merely profitable, but beneficial—true doers of good deeds.

Additionally, semiotic analysis is offered to help each company develop a strategy for communication and marketing that understands deeply the nature of what is being signified, the means of signification, and the reception in the community.

Contact

If you have a question, or want to know something more about Continuum–or philosophy in general–please feel free to send an email:

If you would like to schedule a session–either an hour-long Consulting session or a 30 minute Free Opening Consult–visit the Booking Page.