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Phil Oliver

@osopher.bsky.social
588 followers 1.5K following 137 posts

Philosophy prof in middle TN, Anglophile, bibliophile, pragmatic pluralist, peripatetic. “Solvitur ambulando” (w/dogs). William James Society (wjsociety.org) President. Deleted Twitter, quit IG & Threads. Here now.

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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 · 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
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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
The author agreed that Jimmy would like my hat.
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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 · 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 · 09/08/2025
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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 · 09/07/2025
Added a colorful & hopeful new freedom flag today ☀️
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Tybee Island pier, June ‘22
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
First thing I saw from my bedroom window this morning. Another good reason to wake early.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
Scenes from last week’s Berkshires holiday
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
Yesterday we ascended Mount Greylock, the highest peak in Massachusetts. Today we fly home, renewed by our holiday and resolved to resist the pathetic little aspiring autocrats who wouldn’t recognize an elevated perspective if it bit them. And it will.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
It was her “modest” commentary on Victorian excess. She frequently entertained Henry James, during her decade there before she decamped to Paris in 1911.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
The Mount, Edith Wharton’s “cottage”
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Cheshire MA. Enjoying our Berkshires holiday. Williamstown, Lenox, Pittsfield, Dalton, …
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
Nice view of the Hoosic River and Ashuwillticook* Rail Trail from our rental in the Berkshires, and nice find on the shelf. (*”pleasant river between the hills”)
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
The church next door has constructed a slight impediment to our “pedestrian use”…
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
Opened the pool yesterday, displaced a seasonal resident.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
My new Little Library has been slow to attract patrons, but better signage and more poetry have helped. Shakespeare’s Sonnets flew off the shelf.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
Unsurprisingly, our Lyceum this afternoon on cultural racism (Friday 5 pm MTSU, COE 164) has generated a flurry of its eponym on the alumni Facebook page… making the speaker's point before she even speaks.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
Thanks for bringing “The Wrong Conversation” to #MTSU @agcallard.bsky.social, it was just right for our Applied Philosophy Lyceum.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
For the first time in over a week, I felt the return to life and returned to school yesterday as the antibiotics and steroids finally kicked in, and the sunshine beamed down at lunchtime…Coincidentally (or not) on MLB Opening Day. Biked over to Evergreen cemetery at lunchtime to share my gratitude.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
We’re delighted to welcome Professor Agnes Callard to our Applied Philosophy Lyceum Friday afternoon. Feels like the right conversation at the right time. #mtsu #MiddleTennessee #Philosophy #Socrates
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
I’m now a (little) librarian! Initially thin on fiction, I’ve squeezed in Stegner & Updike. More waiting in the wings.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
Dinner with colleagues at Sushi Ogawa was a delight too.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
Took a Capital Bikeshare ride to the Mall yesterday pm. An example of what I’ll talk about this morning at the James Society session, “finding delight in dark times”…
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
Nice late afternoon walk from the Hilton to Howard University, hosting the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy’s annual meeting and my William James Society presidential address Saturday morning.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Nice to make yesterday‘s print edition of the NYT, even though the bulk of my letter made just the cutting room floor.
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Best birthday cake ever! (From my daughter, MasterChef and BestHuman)
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Phil Oliver @osopher.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
We’d misplaced this garden flag, haven’t flown it in a few years. Found it last night. Putting it out there this morning.
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