It’s tempting when reflecting on our pasts to think that every event, from the trivial to the existential, was a result of careful thought and reasoning. After all, while recounting past events, our go-to question is often, “What was I thinking at the time?” We try to put ourselves into the conscious mindsets of our past selves. We intellectualize things. We try to make sense of it. But in doing so, we sometimes inadvertently read future events back into the past—”That’s why I did it!” For example, it’s true that I now have what I think are eminently reasonable arguments for why I don’t believe in the things I held…

Seems like a straightforward ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question doesn’t it? Regardless of how things are for me, I’m sure that for many of you, it really is that straightforward. You may harbor no real doubts whatsoever about your answer to the question in your own case, whether that answer be a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. And given your personal sense of clarity on the matter, you might even be tempted to say in exasperation, “Well, either you are or you aren’t, Apurva!” and throw in a quick quip about how us philosophers gotta complicate everything for no goddamn reason. You might even try to answer the question for me—which is a…

As a second generation Indian-American—born in the eastern state of Maryland to parents who immigrated to the USofA from the western state of Gujarat in India—having lived in at least two very different worlds, the world in which my parents raised me and the new world I’ve only just begun to explore and craft over the last decade, I’ve recently found it very difficult to answer this question: Who am I? Whenever asked to say a little bit about myself, what typically stumbles out over my teeth is, “Hi! My name is Apurva Parikh. I am a fifth year PhD candidate in the philosophy department at the University of South…