Philosophy is hard
After years of teaching college and university students, I’ve seen just how challenging philosophical texts can be. Compared to other subjects, philosophy often demands more from readers: more attention, more patience, and more effort to unpack dense or unfamiliar ideas.
When browsing the comments sections of other philosophy spaces online, I noticed a recurring theme: users asking for detailed, step-by-step guides to philosophical works. That’s exactly what this blog aims to offer.
The inspiration
During graduate school in continental Europe, two of my professors organized a seminar unlike anything I’d experienced before. We spent an entire semester reading the 15 pages of Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia”…line by line, paragraph by paragraph. After each complete thought, we paused for discussion and clarification. It was the most helpful format I encountered in all my years of university study.
But most university courses don’t have the luxury of that kind of time. Curricula and schedules often force instructors to move faster than students, or even instructors, would like. That’s where Philosophy Walkthroughs comes in.
Why this format matters
This online format gives us room to slow down. There are no deadlines, no exams, and no pressure to rush. We can take the time to work through the material with the kind of care and attention it deserves. That’s something even top-tier universities rarely offer.
What makes this site different
Many of the texts we’ll explore here are ones I have taught in college and university classrooms. The walkthroughs aim to clarify the core ideas in a given text for thoughtful readers. You won’t find hot takes or speculative readings here. Instead, you’ll find clear, trustworthy explanations based on well-established understandings of the philosophers we’re studying.
Just as I would in an introductory course, my goal is to give you an accurate, accessible understanding of the thinker in question.
What this site offers you as a reader
This site does not just offer reliable understandings of the texts and thinkers we discuss. It also serves as a kind of mentorship in ‘close reading.’
You will see how I read between the lines of what is written, tracing the deeper motivations and wider systematic viewpoints of the thinkers in question, while remaining faithful to the letter of the text.
Being a good reader means being an active reader. It requires questioning what each phrase, word, sentence, and paragraph means within the context of the whole. But it also means knowing enough to not get lost in the details.
As we move through the texts together, you will begin to see how to develop these skills and become a better reader yourself.
What you’ll find here
Philosophy Walkthroughs offers guided readings of important philosophical texts, designed for curious readers new to the subject. As the project grows, I’m expanding the Walkthroughs concept to include a few different kinds of content:
Core Series Walkthroughs: In-depth, paragraph-by-paragraph walkthroughs of philosophy texts.
Topical Walkthroughs: Shorter, thematic guides to big questions and schools of thought, like “What I Wish I Knew About Existentialism” or “Philosophical views on Anxiety,” etc.
Personal Walkthroughs: Reflections on how I use philosophy to make sense of everyday life, written to be honest, thoughtful, and grounded.
All of it is shaped by the same goal: to make philosophy accessible and alive for you.
About Paid Subscriptions
Until the second week of June, the Core Series posts on Philosophy Walkthroughs will remain completely free. After the second week of June, the Core Series posts will be freely available in the App and on the Web for 1 week. After one week, App and Web versions of the post will go into the archive behind a paywall. (For more information about my decision to paywall the archive see my post here.) Free subscribers will continue to have access to the email version of every post that was sent to their email inbox.
Topical and personal walkthroughs will be a mixture of free and paid on a case by case basis. In the future, I do plan to make the Core Series posts available only to paid subscribers—in one form or another.
I am a sessional instructor at colleges and universities in the area where I live. Being a sessional instructor means working on short-term contracts with very little job security. Here on Philosophy Walkthroughs, I am at least partly offering what students pay to access in my classes—of course minus the accreditation, face to face interaction, and evaluation. So when the time is right, I hope to begin charging for access to these materials.
That said, I am not yet certain when I will implement that paid model or what it will look like.
At the moment, paid subscriptions are active, but only as a way to access the comment section.
I am someone who values genuine, meaningful exchanges. However, maintaining that standard across a large volume of comments is not sustainable for me. By paywalling the comment section, I hope to create a natural boundary. This way, those who have questions or comments will still have a space to engage, while helping me manage my time and attention more carefully.
Looking forward to seeing how this space grows with readers who care about philosophy.
