Why I Opened a Philosophy Section

This site was built on ADHD and most of it will stay that way. But over time I noticed that the same background runs underneath everything I write, and I never write it down.

I studied law. I studied philosophy at METU (Middle East Technical University). The places I enjoy reading most are divan literature (the classical Ottoman poetic tradition) and strategy. None of these is the subject of the ADHD articles, but all of them determine how those articles are built.

On the philosophy side, what really held me was analytic philosophy. The reason is the way this tradition conducts an argument: first define the term, then state the claim in a single sentence, then construct yourself the strongest objection to that claim. There is no reward for writing in an ornate way; writing in a blurry way is counted directly as a defect.

The area where I have spent the most time is the philosophy of language. The question of what a name refers to, and how, looks technical and closed at first glance; yet underneath it lies this: if we can mean something by a word, what makes that possible? The Kripke article in this section discusses exactly that question. Alongside it I am also interested in the philosophy of mind and epistemology; these three are in any case interconnected fields.

The concrete habit the analytic tradition left in me is this: before defending a claim, to think of the situation that would falsify it. “If this is true, in what case would it be false?” This question has carried over to the ADHD articles on the site; the “when it doesn't work” sections in the method articles come from there.

Divan literature and strategy, on the other hand, feed me from an entirely different place; I have written about them separately below.

This section is meant to make that background visible.

Why a separate section

The simplest reason is this: so that the reader does not get confused.

Someone looking for a method, while trying to set up a morning routine, may not want to read Fuzuli. In the same way, someone who wants to read a discussion of a concept does not want to fall into a list of medication side effects.

My reason for separating all the sections of the site has always been the same: the person looking for one generally is not looking for the other. That is why I separated the methods from the diary. The same logic holds here.

What law left me

The most lasting thing my legal education left me was the habit of telling a claim apart from its basis.

When you hear a sentence, the first question to ask is not “do I agree?” It is “What is this based on?” What is the source, who is saying it, how do they know, in what situation does it hold and in what situation does it not.

This habit carried over directly into the ADHD articles. It is the reason I cite sources in the articles on the site, and the reason I write “there is no evidence” where the evidence is weak. Most of the information about ADHD circulating on the internet consists of sentences accepted without anyone asking what they rest on.

The second thing law left me is to look at the exception. When a rule is being explained, the real information is in the exception. That is also the reason the method articles have a “when it doesn't work” section.

What philosophy left me

What philosophy left me is more uncomfortable: knowing that concepts are not as solid as they look.

“Will,” “laziness,” “responsibility,” “motivation.” In everyday talk these are used as if they were things with settled definitions. Yet each of them is contested, each comes from a history, and each changes meaning depending on whom it is applied to.

For someone with ADHD this is not an abstract matter. When you have been called “lazy” for years, being able to ask what that word rests on concerns your life directly.

The responsibility article on the site and the counter-article I wrote the day after it came out of exactly these muscles: defending a concept and, right after, looking for its limit.

Why divan literature

This is the hardest to explain and, I think, my favourite.

Divan poetry is a field with very strict rules. There is metre, there is rhyme, there are mazmuns (the fixed stock of conventional poetic images); the freedom in the poet's hands looks very narrow at first sight. Yet extraordinary things were done within that narrowness.

The idea it left me is this: constraint is not the enemy of creativity. Sometimes quite the opposite.

It took me a long time to notice how this idea relates to ADHD. Unlimited options produce paralysis in me; a narrow and definite frame gets work done. That is also why methods like the one-list rule or three tasks work: reducing options.

Divan poetry taught me this long before any productivity book did.

Why strategy

What my readings in strategy left me is the idea of resource management.

Strategy is not choosing what will be done; it is choosing what will not be done. It is deciding where to put a limited resource. The side that tries to be strong on every front at once cannot be strong on any front.

For someone whose attention capacity is limited, this is a text written directly for them. Attention is exactly a limited resource, and trying to spread it everywhere is the most common mistake.

The idea of the not-to-do list on the site, and the idea of the one big task of the week, come from here too.

What will happen here

In this section the following will appear:

• Concept articles: tracing words worn down in everyday language, such as will, responsibility, virtue and justice.
• Readings of texts: a single couplet from divan poetry, a single paragraph from a philosophy text, and dwelling on it.
• Strategy articles: on resources, priorities and giving things up.
• The philosophical side of law: rule, exception and interpretation.

It matters, too, what will not happen: nobody is being lectured here. I am not an academic, and these articles are not academic texts. They are what stayed in my mind from what I read, and what it corresponds to in everyday life.

A warning

The articles in this section are subject to a different rule from the ADHD articles.

In the ADHD articles a claim has to be backed by a source, because wrong information there does direct harm. Here, thinking itself is the subject. I will cite sources, but the articles will be freer, and often will not arrive at a conclusion.

I say this so that there is no confusion: when you read a sentence in the ADHD articles, you can look for a study behind it. When you read a sentence here, there is a person behind it, and that is all.

Where the texts come from

There are two kinds of text in this section and I do not want to mix them up.

My course texts. Academic texts I wrote for a course at university. These are mine and they passed Turnitin: no plagiarism, no section written by artificial intelligence. Which text falls into this group is stated separately at the top of the article.

Discussion texts prepared for the site. Texts that take up specific questions in analytic philosophy, prepared on topics I choose and published by me. These are not course assignments; they are not presented as an academic submission and should not be read as one. I make use of artificial intelligence in preparing these texts, and I check the sources and the claims myself.

My reason for writing this distinction down is this: today it cannot be assumed that there is a person behind every text on the internet. In philosophy texts this matters especially, because the value here lies less in information than in the reasoning itself. So instead of hiding where each text comes from, I write it down.