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In his felicitous essay titled “Walking,” published posthumously in 1862, Henry David Thoreau approximates a historical practice that he recognizes by analogy. ...

For centuries, Western intellectuals have centered public culture around the triumvirate of Homer, Socrates, and Plato. In Homer they placed the origins of Gree...

The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (404-323 BCE) is usually described as a hermit, complete with representative anecdotes and ubiquitous lantern a...

“Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord, That David played, and it pleased the Lord. But you don’t really care for music, do you? — from Hall...

Some years ago this blog ran a series of entries titled “The Politics of Eremitism.” Eremitism does not propose guidelines for others, but the guidelines for th...

Many books and media discuss Stoicism, its tenets, its historical advocates in ancient Greece and Rome, its ethical components, its life advice. In the history ...

Reigen Eto (1721-1785) was a student of the renowned Zen Master Hakuin. At one point, Reigen left Hakuin’s temple to pursue the solitude of the mountains ...

“Blindness is not darkness; it is a form of solitude.” — Jorge Luis Borges, “August 25, 1983” in his Shakespeare’s Memory The unsentimental view from earl...

Following World War II, liberal Catholic thinkers embarked on a grand intellectual project of convergence — or at least dialogue — with religious th...