I’m Phil Smoke, a philosophy nerd from Ohio living and writing in Buenos Aires. I have one book out in the wild and one under construction. The one in the wild is called Making Sense of Brief Lives.
There are some questions we can’t avoid. Questions about meaning and morality, about belief and evidence and truth—about things that are reflected in our lives, whether or not we ever analyze them explicitly. This is the conviction that drives Making Sense of Brief Lives, first to identify with stark clarity the practical philosophical questions we face in life, and then to drive toward decisive answers.
You can read praise for the book here, and if inclined you can buy it from independent sellers or big evil ones.
The sequel I’m working on will tackle some core questions of political philosophy and look at current realities of neocolonialism, political polarization, broader democratic decline, the climate grave we keep digging deeper, and our options for avoiding or enduring the very worst.
Older essays along these lines are live here, and newer writings and recordings flow from the Smokestack, mixed with music and literature and bits of Buenos Aires. These could be fun places to start.
I was born in Michigan and grew up in Cleveland. Then I studied and worked around Ohio, Oklahoma, New York, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Chicago. I’ve practiced law, taught math, taught history, bartended, served food, washed dishes, and stocked shelves. I am emphatically both a dog person and a cat person.
