Article Log - 20.07.2025

On the 7 articles I read last week and 7 more for next week...

g.m.

Jul 20, 2025

I read through the seven articles I listed in last week’s article log, letting myself sit with words and ideas that weren’t my own. Each morning, in those quiet twenty minutes before I had to leave for work, I’d settle at my desk and scribble down anything that caught my attention—phrases, thoughts, fragments that felt worth keeping. In the evenings, I’d come back to these notes, adding future research points or favourite quotes into my Notion for safekeeping.

Here’s what I took away from each piece.

Monday 14th July

The French Liar

by Sandrine Parageau

I’ve been acquainted with Descartes for probably a decade now. From school to my degree. He’s a philosopher you often read in solitude, not combining with others of his time. But never did I know what is contemporaries thought of him and it makes so much more sense now. In sum they thought he was a purveyor of ignorance. They thought he was telling people to renounce their beliefs and knowledge and that his philosophy was a tool devised to spread ignorance! I love it!

I also found this interpretation of Descartes’ writing interesting because I do truly believe he sat in his dressing gown for an age and cast everything aside and that is was not a metaphor of sorts. I refuse to believe that did not happen.

‘Radical doubt and the cogito have thus been interpreted as literary and rhetorical devices, or mere fables (the word is used by Descartes himself in the Discourse). They are generally seen as fictions or thought experiments, rather than as a cognitive process that Descartes actually experienced’

Tuesday 15th July

War, Confession, Political Reimagining: Five Essential Books by Kenyan Authors

by Wanjeri Gakuru

The article gave a brief history of Kenya’s literary and publishing background and the new ground momentum for authors to form their own publishing houses and write gender bending novels instead of curriculum texts.

One of the recommendations I added to my list was Dennis Mugaa, Half Portraits Under Water.

Wednesday 16th July

Philosophers on Holiday

By Matt Qvortrup

It seems many philosophers were wary of holidays, while others embraced them. For some, holidays raised troubling philosophical questions; for others, they sparked reflection in more joyful, productive ways. A short but witty piece!

Thursday 10th July

Irenosen Okojie on Creating New Mythologies

by Irenosen Okojie

An article on Okojie’s debut fiction. The writing alone on this little article is enough to pull you into her work. Words spinning beautifully from one comma to another. I was hoping for a little more on the theory of creating new mythologies but what Okojie did say was that she is not sure there is one specific correct way to create a myth. There are multitude of ways that all have separate kinetic energy. The atoms are all there just waiting to be connected. I also liked reading about how Okojie crafted her debut from scouring museums to traveling.

Friday 11th July

The Importance of Purple

by Massimo Pigliucci

Not so much about the colour itself, but a metaphor from the Roman figure Helvidius Priscus. He drew from the Stoics and emphasises following the purple thread on the roman toga rather than looking at the white cloth engulfing it. Or that we cannot control our external circumstances and should then focus on our responses to them of which we can control. It’s a metaphor of a growing moral fibre that requires time and effort.

Saturday 12th July

Genre is a Container, Not a Cage, a Tool, Not a Limitation

by Matthew Clark Davidson and Alice LaPlante

I think this piece perfectly summed up a lot of contemporary books that are floating around at the moment. The impossibility to define them into a certain category. It was kind of this but kind of that. There is no one size fits all with genre.

The piece touches on genre as something to converse with. For your material to dynamically interact with the conventions of the genre. Not to be limited but to tug at the direction of the story. Let the words test the limit of the genre.

Sunday 13th July

Memories without Brains

by Matthew Sims

I remember I wrote about the mating of hover flies for one of my philosophy essays at uni. It felt silly at the time but now I realise that the complexity of species like this can help indicate patterns in humanity as well.

Sims article on ‘slime mould’ and it’s ability to remember also reflects this. While I care little about slime mould, what was interesting was the idea that memory can extend beyond the confinement of the body and may involve a coupled interaction with structures in the environment. There is a lot to be learnt if philosophers and biologists united.