Why Philosophy Needs Mythology—An Invitation to The Grand Praxis
A mythopoetic journey
This is, after all, a philosophy blog.
Nearly a year ago, I started writing a different kind of essay. Not to provide the foundation for my analytical work, but to do something analytical philosophy cannot: attach reason to passion.
The Grand Praxis Series—twelve mythopoetic essays I completed late last winter—uses narrative and metaphor to communicate philosophical truths in ways meant to be felt as much as understood.
These aren’t arguments. They’re not trying to prove propositions through logic and evidence. They’re purely metaphorical—the circus, the flood, the wire, the space between consciousness and reality. They’re philosophy as experience rather than analysis.
Why Both Matter
Here’s what I’ve learned: analysis without passion becomes bloodless. You can build perfect frameworks that never move anyone to action. You can diagnose every problem with precision and still leave people feeling nothing—no urgency, no orientation, no sense of why any of it matters.
But passion without reason becomes manipulable. You can feel deeply moved by narratives that lead you nowhere good. You can be emotionally satisfied by frameworks that don’t cohere with reality.
What Hume understood—and what I’m attempting across both modes—is that passion provides direction, but reason provides correction. Neither is complete without the other.
The analytical essays give you tools for thinking clearly, for building coherent frameworks, for resisting manipulation through logical rigor.
The Grand Praxis essays give you something else: the felt sense of why coherence matters. What it’s like to hold tension productively. How love functions as an epistemic force. Why the struggle is worth sustaining.
What These Essays Do
The twelve pieces trace a philosophical arc through pure metaphor:
A Treatise on Purpose: How meaning is made when gods are dead
The Grand Praxis: Creative tension as the structure of reality
The Mythology of The Matrix: Using popular narrative to understand our condition
A Treatise on Love: Love as the force that holds coherence together
Meaning and the Landscape of Consciousness: Where meaning emerges between us
Filling The Space and Opening the Void: The dual movements of creation
After Hours at the Circus: Reflection beyond spectacle
The Sun Is Rising: Finding orientation in chaos
An Evening Performance at the Circus: Becoming conscious participants
Socrates at the Circus: Ancient wisdom for modern challenges
The Grand Finale: The transformation from witness to actor
The Fifth Chair: Philosophical inheritance
They’re not easier than analytical philosophy—in some ways they’re harder, because they ask you to engage emotionally, aesthetically, intuitively. They don’t reduce to propositions. They’re meant to be experienced.
This Might Not Be For You
I need to be honest: this work won’t resonate with everyone.
If you prefer pure analysis, if metaphor feels like obfuscation rather than illumination, if you want philosophical claims you can test empirically rather than narratives you have to sit with—the Grand Praxis might not land.
And that’s fine. The analytical essays stand on their own. You don’t need the mythopoetic work to understand the arguments about technocracy, coherence, or democratic navigation.
But if you’ve ever felt that something is missing from purely analytical philosophy—if you’ve understood arguments intellectually but struggled to feel their weight, if you’ve grasped frameworks logically but had no sense of how to inhabit them—then these essays might offer what analysis alone cannot.
What Makes This Different
The circus, the flood, the wire—these aren’t decorations added to argument. They’re meant to be a richer mode of communication. You’re not supposed to translate them immediately into propositions. You’re meant to let them work on you at levels analysis cannot reach.
When I write about walking the wire above the flood, you’re not just learning a concept. You’re feeling what it’s like to hold balance when forces pull you apart. You’re experiencing the vertigo, the focus, the courage required. The abstract becomes visceral.
When I describe pushing back the flood, you’re not just understanding “resistance to entropy.” You’re feeling the pressure, the urgency, the necessity of the work. The philosophical becomes personal.
This is how certain truths can be communicated to be felt rather than merely understood. Not because analysis is insufficient for grasping them intellectually, but because intellectual grasp alone doesn’t give you the emotional weight, the lived orientation, the attachment of reason to passion that makes philosophy livable.
The Integration of Reason and Passion
The Grand Praxis essays aren’t irrational. They maintain philosophical coherence. But they communicate through forms that engage your whole being, not just your critical faculties.
This is Hume’s insight embodied: reason alone cannot motivate. Passion without reason’s discipline leads astray. But when you feel why something matters while also thinking clearly about it—that’s when philosophy becomes more than abstract understanding.
When I write “our soul is meaning, constructed such as it is,” that’s a philosophical claim you can analyze. But when you experience it through narrative—through the circus at night, through conversations with historical figures, through the flood rising at the tent’s edges—it becomes something you feel in your marrow, not just grasp with your mind.
An Honest Invitation
If you’ve found value in my analytical work and you’re curious about a different register—one that operates through narrative rather than argument, through metaphor rather than logic, through experience rather than proposition—I invite you to explore The Grand Praxis Series.
But I need to be clear: this might not be your thing.
Some people connect deeply with mythopoetic philosophy. Others find it frustrating or pretentious. Some experience genuine insight through metaphor. Others just want the argument stated plainly.
If you’re the latter, stick with the analytical essays. They give you everything you need intellectually.
If you’re curious about the former—if you want to feel what coherence means, not just understand it; if you want philosophy that attaches to your passions, not just your reason; if you’re willing to sit with narrative and let it work on you—then these twelve essays are waiting.
What You’ll Find
Read in order, The Grand Praxis will take you through:
The recognition that meaning must be constructed when the universe provides none
The structure of creative tension that generates coherence
The mythology we need to navigate epistemic collapse
Love as the force that makes truth-seeking worth doing
The space between consciousness and reality where meaning lives
The dual movements of filling space and opening void
The difference between spectacle and reflection
The orientation that emerges from chaos
The shift from passive spectator to conscious participant
Ancient wisdom meeting modern challenges
The transformation from witness to actor
And finally, taking your seat at the philosophical table
Not as argument but as experience. Not as proof but as invitation. Not as certainty but as exploration.
Two Modes, One Project
The analytical work: tools for thinking clearly
The mythopoetic work: attaching reason to passion
Together, they respect both dimensions of human understanding. But they’re independent. You don’t need one to benefit from the other.
The question is whether you want philosophy that speaks to your whole being—not just your reasoning capacity but your emotional life, your aesthetic sense, your need for orientation in chaos.
The Grand Praxis Series is there if you want it. Twelve essays exploring meaning, tension, love, and consciousness through narrative rather than argument. Philosophy meant to be felt as much as thought.
It might not be your cup of tea. But if you’ve been reading the analytical work and wondering what it feels like when philosophy attaches to passion, when reason finds its emotional weight, when understanding becomes orientation—this is the invitation.
Hold the center. Push back the flood. Keep walking the wire.
Mike.
Wow, I feel like a nice ripe fruit has fallen I right into my hand. It’s often said that Nietzsche by highlighting the Dionysian over the Apollonian was putting Socrates in his place. But it was really Socratic rationalism, which ironically betrayed what Socrates was all about. You know about and I’m sure you’ll be illuminating his mythic dimension and perhaps that of Plato. I think this golden thread runs all the way through Schelling and the romantics, to
Nietzsche then Heidegger. Looking forward to reading your book.
Here's a case where I appreciate the departure from concise terminology. We're talking abut what our native relatives call storytelling, a process that provides background and experiential foundation for the lessons that flow. I suspect many will find it more relatable by describing the process in such gory detail, with more familiar Western references. Kudos!