For all the progress updates in one place:
Progress Update: September 2025
Here are the books I read/listened to for my research during September 2025, and my notes on the progress.
Here are the books I read/listened to during September:
Engaging Japanese Philosophy (Sections)
A Climate (Watsuji Tetsurō, Sections)
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Hume)
Goethe, Kant, Hegel (Kaufmann, Sections)
Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre (Kaufmann)
From Shakespeare to Existentialism (Kaufmann, sections)
A Book of Secrets (Derren Brown)
Del sentimiento tragico de la vida (Unamuno)
Before You Know It
The Birth of Hedonism
The Daily Stoic
What Doesn’t Kill Us
Resonance (Sections)
Sartor Resartus (Carlyle, sections)
The Ego and Its Own (Stirner, sections)
Notes:
• September was a solid month. I’m now 20 books away from finishing the bulk of the research, so I should be done before the end of the year if I keep up this pace. I do have some long and difficult books that will slow me down, but the three months left in the year should be enough time to finish.
I’m excited to move on to a new phase of writing the book, but I am terrified at the amount of information I’ll have to transcribe, sort through, select, and categorize. I thought that phase would take about 6 months, but taking a second look at all the material I have, I think it can extend to a full year. So, next year will be about organizing all the research, and then it will take a year to a year and a half for the actual writing and editing. If all goes well, the book will come out in 2028.
• The best read of the month was a section on Watsuji Tetsurō in the book “Engaging Japanese Philosophy.” Watsuji was a Japanese philosopher from the ‘Kyoto School’ who combined elements of existentialism and Nietzsche’s philosophy with Japanese philosophical tradition and way of life.
Nietzsche and the existentialists are often accused of focusing too much on the individual, not giving enough importance to the social dimension of our lives. Watsuji did a great job incorporating the constant tension and evolving dynamic between the individual and the group. For him, our individuality is created by rejecting the community; however, after doing so, we must give up parts of our individuality to rejoin that community (though we do so now knowing what we are not willing to give up of ourselves). The result is a negotiation between how much to reject the group to find and maintain our individuality and, in turn, how much to give up of our individuality to be part of the community.
Watsuji’s thinking is the result of putting individualistic philosophy in the hands of someone who grew up and lived in a group-oriented society. It was perfect synergy. I don’t know why he isn’t well-known (maybe because he is not European or Ancient). His thinking is sharp, original, and insightful. I loved what he had to say; I filled his section of the book with notes and underlinings. I’m glad I stumbled upon him.