Home and Homelessness

What is it about?

In the first part, this article discusses the structure of what we call "home" in its two main forms: the home we are born into and the home we make with a partner. The second part discusses a kind of spiritual homelessness that is conducive to becoming a philosopher, as Nietzsche and Plato both saw. In the third part I address the question of whether and how this philosophizing that begins in homelessness differs from the ancient thinking that begins in wonder.

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Photo by Kasuma F. Gruber on Unsplash

Photo by Kasuma F. Gruber on Unsplash

Why is it important?

I wrote this piece as a reflection on my own feelings of being homeless and lost in the world, and in this sense it has a therapeutic quality that others may also find interesting. At the same time, it discusses how the phenomenon of home - with which we all are deeply familiar on an everyday basis - can be thought on the basis of the Western philosophical tradition.