How to Think Like a Philosopher
Transform philosophy from an abstract academic subject into a practical operating system for everyday life. Learn how to interrogate hidden assumptions, spot weak arguments, resolve ethical dilemmas, and define what truly matters.
Like Duolingo, but for How to Think Like a Philosopher. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 11 levels across 2 sections, about 22 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Sharpening Everyday Beliefs and Deciding How to Live. It starts from scratch.
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Key ideas in How to Think Like a Philosopher
- People regularly absorb core beliefs about success, duty, and normality from family and culture without realizing it
- Philosophical thinking begins by separating ideas you actively reasoned through from habits picked up through social osmosis
- Widespread social agreement does not mean a belief was arrived at through sound reasoning
- Many disagreements fail to make progress because each person is using the same word to mean different things
- Defining key terms at the start reveals whether people actually disagree about facts or are just talking past one another
- Philosophical dialogue requires clarifying concepts before debating conclusions
- Every philosophical claim rests on silent foundations that must hold true for the conclusion to make sense
- You can uncover an unspoken assumption by asking what the speaker took for granted without proving
- Evaluating an argument requires inspecting these underlying assumptions rather than just reacting to the final claim
- Pretending to have answers shuts down curiosity and locks in false beliefs
- Philosophical discovery requires being comfortable stating what you do not know
- Defending an opinion purely to avoid being wrong prioritizes ego over understanding
- In philosophy, an argument is not an angry exchange or quarrel, but a reasoned case for a conclusion
- A proper argument pairs a specific claim with reasons or evidence meant to justify it
- Simply venting emotion or asserting an opinion without supporting reasons is not an argument
- An argument can have perfect internal logic yet still arrive at a false conclusion if one of its starting claims is false
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives How to Think Like a Philosopher the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What is one of the first steps in philosophical thinking?
Get it right to open this lesson and 10 more in the app.
Where How to Think Like a Philosopher takes you
- 1
Sharpening Everyday Beliefs
- Questioning Unexamined Assumptions
- Stress-Testing Arguments
- 2
Deciding How to Live
- Evaluating Right and Wrong
- Finding Direction and Purpose
2 sections · 4 units · 11 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
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Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
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- What you get
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You pick the voice
How to Think Like a Philosopher is taught in the Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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