Alan Watts

Imagine growing up at a time when the ground beneath your feet is shifting, and every old certainty is suddenly up for debate. Alan Watts emerged from this world—a world that was searching, restless, and ready to question everything. The story of how he would become the West’s most influential interpreter of Zen and Daoism begins here, in the shadow of lost confidence.Britain, nineteen fifteen. Alan Watts was born into a society that no longer fully trusted its traditions. The old nineteenth-century faith in progress had been battered by war, shaken by the rise of psychology, and unsettled by the rapid growth of modern cities. By the time Watts was writing seriously, Western culture was overflowing with new methods for self-improvement and discipline. Yet none of these seemed to answer the deeper, quieter sense of unease: what if the self itself was the problem? This tension would become the heart of Watts’s later work.Aurelius and Malik take on this case in full — 5 chapters, 34 minutes, one complete story.Learn more at: https://thephilosophyarchive.com/philosophy/alan-wattsThe Philosophy Archive Dialogues is part of The Archive Network by Jonkai Ventures. In every episode, curators Aurelius and Malik take one thinker or idea and work through it together — one building the argument, the other pressing on where it strains.The Archive Network is an independent, solo-run project. Everything is free, with no ads and no paywalls. Support doesn't unlock anything; it simply keeps the work going:https://thearchivenetwork.com/supportExplore this archive:https://thephilosophyarchive.comDiscover more archives and stories:https://thearchivenetwork.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.