About me.
Welcome to the Garden of Aidan! My name is Aidan Rhys and this is my website dedicated to being at the forefront of philosophy and self-improvement. Beginning in 2016 I developed a fascination with philosophy, and in 2020 I attended it at University, graduating in 2023 with a First class Bachelors with honours.
Despite my academic background in analytic philosophy, focused mostly on logic, philosophy of mind and cognitive science, I believe that philosophy has something to offer humanity beyond endless pondering of intellectually-impenetrable questions. I believe that philosophy can be brought to new heights with a pragmatic approach to the discipline, with an emphasis on practical philosophy directing us towards flourishing and greater wellbeing.
This was the approach taken by various ancient schools: the stoics mocked those wasting their years writing treatise after treatise on what the nature of time is, or what the nature of change in the universe is. They recognised the power of a well-sharpened faculty of reason, and so rather than misdirect their reasoning toward matters irrelevant to the lives of most people, they aimed precisely towards telling us how to avoid anxiety, how to overcome our harmful desires, how to flourish as a human being in order to maximise the quality of your time on this earth.
In a similar vein, the Buddhists recognised the problem of suffering being so ubiquitous throughout our lives as the only important spiritual problem.
Since 2018 I have suffered from Chronic fatigue syndrome and also later developed further auto-immune issues and this radically uprooted my life. Not only did I have to learn to navigate daily life with debilitating physical and cognitive symptoms but I also had to completely redirect his ambitions in life. Two things that have made progressing in life possible despite these circumstances have been physiology (healthy, rational lifestyle choices) and philosophy (learning to find meaning, fulfilment and maintain a tranquil mind whilst facing the prospect of a life of illness.) I chose Stoicism, Buddhism and Samurai philosophy as the constituent parts of my course because these 3 schools of thought, particularly stoicism, have aided me with living well hugely.
For many years I spent >95% of my time laying in bed due to my symptoms and so I had countless hours to reflect and unlimited training material for putting stoic principles into practice. I’ve gathered all the most useful ones and put them into a course.
I personally find many traditional philosophical questions fascinating. Philosophy of religion, for example is a topic I will no doubt make lots of content on in future. But philosophy must be returned to its former glory. In the ancient times, philosophers strode around Athens sporting powerful physiques and were some of the most highly respected people, with Aristotle serving as a tutor to Alexander the Great, and it being commonplace for philosophers to serve as advisors to rulers.
In the modern age, philosophy professors cower in the depths of their philosophy departments and mostly avoid using their philosophical reasoning for any practical benefit. They tip toe around scientists and are not well respected by other disciplines. The work produced tends to be hyper-specific papers addressing some niche part of an already niche abstract problem.
My goal is to correct this, and consider my practical philosophy course to be a modest first step towards this aim. Despite my success during my undergraduate years, I believe philosophical excellence is not best pursued in the academy, so there will be a wealth of content both here and on YouTube in the future, and I would like you to join me as we build a citadel of inspiring and insightful philosophy together.
