An attempt to offer a coherent, reasonable and explanatory account of the world that surrounds us — and our relationship with it.
Read from the beginning ScrollAbout the Book
"The picture that emerges is both rigorous and beautiful — a universe that is one, eternal, and self-sufficient, producing in us beings capable of understanding it, marvelling at it, and finding within it a meaning not given from above but created from within."
This book begins with a simple conviction: that philosophy cannot be done in isolation from science. Any honest account of reality must start from what we actually know about the world — from physics, from cosmology, from what the last four centuries of inquiry have established. Only then can it ask the deeper questions.
Moving from the structure of spacetime to the nature of being, from the foundations of morality to the organisation of society, Being and Man attempts to build a single coherent picture — one that takes the findings of modern science seriously while refusing to surrender the questions that science alone cannot answer: What exists? How should I live? What kind of society is worth building?
This is a first draft, shared in the spirit of work in progress. The arguments are still being tested and the prose is still being sharpened. Readers who engage with it now are, in a sense, part of the conversation.
Structure
I
Any credible account of reality must be disciplined by our best science. This chapter lays out the physical picture of the universe — energy, spacetime, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics — that grounds everything that follows.
In revisionII
What exists? What is time? What are we? Physics provides the data; metaphysics provides the interpretation. This chapter argues for a monist, eternalist picture of reality — one Whole, self-sufficient and infinite.
In revisionIII
How should we live? Drawing on Aristotle, Kant, and Mill while departing from each, this chapter attempts to ground morality in what we actually are — and to answer both the outward question of justice and the inward question of happiness.
In revisionIV
How should society be organised? From liberty and democracy to justice, the economy, and the international order, this chapter extends the ethical argument into the domain of collective life and shared institutions.
In revisionGet in Touch
Whether you have a question about the ideas, a thought you would like to share, or simply want to follow the book's progress — I read everything and reply when I can.
paolo.vischi@outlook.com