Today’s excerpt comes from §92-94 of Wittgenstein’s ‘On Certainty.’ In it, Wittgenstein explores the difference between normal, every-day, beliefs – like “the bus is going to get here at 2:30pm” – and beliefs that serve, in one way or another, as backdrops for us, and seem quite obvious: ‘The world has existed for a long time.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Major Works: Selected Philosophical Writings. 1. ed. HarperPerennial ModernThought. New York: HarperPerennial, 2009, sec. 92-94

Today's excerpt comes from a lecture written by Henry David Thoreau, titled walking. The lecture itself is a sort of walk, meandering and sauntering around.

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Citation: Thoreau, Henry David. “Walking.” In Thackeray Newman Ruskin Huxley Thoreau and Others, Deluxe Edition., 393–425. Harvard Classics. P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1938.

Today's Daily 15 is an excursion into one of Freud's first introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. In the lecture, Freud asks whether slips of the tongue, misplacements, or seemingly random forgettings, in fact, have a sense or a meaning or an interpretation.

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Citation: Freud, Sigmund, and James Strachey. “II Parapraxes.” In Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York: Norton, 1977.

Today's excerpt comes from the introduction of Sartre's masterwork, Being and Nothingness. Sartre discusses the relation of consciousness to itself.

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Excerpt from Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. Translated by Sarah Richmond. First Washington Square Press/Atria paperback edition. New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi: Washington Square Press/Atria, 2021, pp. 11 - 12.

Today's excerpt comes from Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. In the passage, Marcel discusses the connection between habit, memory, and the process of forgetting and becoming indifferent.

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Excerpt from: Proust, Marcel. Swann’s Way. Translated by C. K. Scott-Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. Modern Library pbk. ed. The Modern Library Classics, v. 1. New York: Modern Library, 2003, pp. 300-301.