Concept Maps of this Substack

An overview of what we'll be discussing here going forward...

Well, I’m back for another much delayed post… Been busy organizing my thoughts and developing a notion of the topics I need to cover in this Substack.

I have developed a set of “concept maps” to identify the subjects I could talk about. For those who don’t know what a “concept map” is, it is a pedagogical methodology for representing in graphic form the concepts and relationships between concepts of subject domain. It is usually used by teachers to help students determine the important concepts and relationships of a given subject matter.

As an example, here is the top level concept map representing the subject matter of this Substack.

Unfortunately, it takes twelve such maps to outline the topics I may be discussing here. Naturally that exceeds the amount of space for one post, so I’m going to have to spread it out over several posts as I did my previous “Philosophical Annotated Reading List.”

The concept maps are “layered” because compressing them into one map would be huge. You should have no problem following the layers, however, as they proceed left to right from the preceding map.

So starting from the previous map, here is the next one in the sequence left to right from the topics listed in the previous map.

And using the same progression immediately under that map is the “Metaphysics” map.

There isn’t a map for “Epistemology” because I don’t have much to say about that topic.

Once a given map and its lower layers have been show, we proceed to the next layer from the topmost map, i.e., having finished off Philosophy, we proceed to the Attitude concept map. And so through the top level concepts.

Note that I don’t guarantee to discuss every topic on these maps. The maps are a work in process and topics may be removed or added as we go along. There may also be posts outside of the maps, such as the previous post about the Ukraine war.

Concept maps are intended to answer a specific question. The question posed at the top of the overview map above is the subject of this Substack. The Five Essentials are the answer to the question of what does optimal human survival require of the individual in the current state of human civilization. This Substack is intended to explore that question and offer an answer different to the dominant society’s answers which are clearly not working well for most people.

Stay tuned for the rest of the concept maps to follow immediately...