iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Steven Spielberg is back with a film, Disclosure Day, sure to stoke a resurgence of belief in (or maybe just fevered discussion of) alien/demonic incursions into our realm (and Francisco Lindor’s)... open.substack.com/pub/philoliv...

open.substack.com

The more things change…

Are we approaching Satanic Panic 2.0, and the demon-haunted world redux?

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Uprooted & without power 7 days now.

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Day 4 without power. Our temporary lodging afforded a view of the new Titans’ stadium, until problems with the room uprooted us. Taking the dogs out is still a challenge, but at least we’ve thawed out. Could be worse. Sadly, for many, it is.

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

Snowy sleety icky day in middle Tennessee. Good time to pick up the little book about the Parnassus pooches I was gifted for Christmas. Hauled the elliptical in from the barn too, no dogwalk for us today.

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

Spring 2026 Newsletter President’s Message from Dr. Phil Oliver ‘Tis the season of William James’s birth, in 1842. By an odd twist of coincidence, January 11 happens also to be my wife’s birthday. So it’s a date I cannot and dare not ever forget… wjsociety.org/news/

wjsociety.org

WJS Newsletter – William James Society

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

I’ve heard some unimpressive commencement speeches over the years at my school, and anticipate another this afternoon. To compensate: Tim Minchin - 9 LifeLessons youtu.be/FJ__a4qVE_g?...

youtu.be

Tim Minchin - 9 Life Lessons

YouTube video by Agile Minds #26

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

What a lovely end-of-semester gift from a student in Philosophy of Happiness. Volume II includes the transcendent 1910 letter to Henry Adams I sent them off with: “ I am so happy I can stand it no longer!”

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

My exam-day welcome. I used to have that nightmare.

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Percy Warner Park, Nashville 11.16.25

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

A gift from the bride. Priceless.

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

Younger Daughter’s wedding was picture-perfect, with wonderful weather after a stormy day and before a cold one. My reception toast channeled “my philosophical muse” on the art of knowing what to overlook. Hope they’ll never overlook the glory of love for a “fellow bird”…

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

There was something sweet about having the No Kings protesters parade by as I waited to get my Jimmy Carter book signed.

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Autumnal season’s greetings, fellow friends of William James. I first began to think of WJ in casually-friendly terms back in the Fall of my first year of grad school at Vanderbilt in the ’80s… wjsociety.org/news/

wjsociety.org

WJS Newsletter (NEW!) – William James Society

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

Those who most need to grasp this message will find it too long. They won’t read it. open.substack.com/pub/jmarriot...

open.substack.com

The dawn of the post-literate society

And the end of civilisation

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

Excellent Lyceum address from Megan Craig, on staying human(e) and present in the face of mortality. #mtsu #AppliedPhilosophyLyceum

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Megan Craig (Stony Brook University) is MTSU's Applied Philosophy Lyceum speaker Friday... RELATION AND RUPTURE AT THE END OF LIFE Friday, September 26, 2025 • 5 p.m. College of Education, Room 164 Middle Tennessee State University philoshap2.blogspot.com/2025/09/a-co...

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

youtube.com/live/fQnMDJ7... (starts at about 25”… great to see former students Sneh and Victoria on the panel!)

youtube.com

MTSU Constitution Day Keynote Speaker featuring David Brooks

YouTube video by Tucker Theatre

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

It’s been a lovely retreat here at the Doghouse. But all good things etc.

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Grant's battlefield heroism was matched by the courage to complete his memoirs, pain and pressure be damned, as cancer closed in and the light dimmed. When he finished writing, he was done. Equally impressive was his winning battle against alcohol. Twain understood…

a.co

Grant

Quote shared via Kindle: "Mark Twain had struggled with similar cravings for alcohol and tobacco. When they discussed the subject, Grant mentioned that although doctors had urged him to sip whiskey or...

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

A “humanistic philosophy of life” extollling “spiritual joy in living” that we ought not to forget. open.substack.com/pub/philoliv...

open.substack.com

Science and Human Affairs from the Viewpoint of Biology

by Winterton C. Curtis (Harcourt Brace, 1922)

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

It's the birthday of E.B. White (books by this author), born Elwin Brooks White in Mount Vernon, New York (1899)… who said: "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

writersalmanac.publicradio.org

The Last Perfect Season by Joyce Sutphen | The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

'The Last Perfect Season' by Joyce Sutphen, and the literary and historical notes for Friday, July 11, 2014.

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Added a colorful & hopeful new freedom flag today ☀️

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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

Contrary to the Woody Allen line suggesting Kafka’s perpetual moroseness (“self-esteem a notch below Kafka’s”), “he found love and happiness in the last year of his life…’Everything was done with laughter…[he was]always cheerful. He liked to play; he was a born playmate, always ready for some fun.’”

garrisonkeillor.com

The Writer's Almanac for Thursday, July 3, 2025 - Garrison Keillor

Today is the birthday of Franz Kafka, born in Prague (1883). He was unhappy for most of his life: terrified of his tyrannical father, plagued by a whole host of psychosomatic illnesses, and tormented ...

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