“Be a philosopher; but amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.” – David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.
Before we take on Taoism, I thought it might benefit readers old and new to rehearse the core objective of this website and the chain of progress made to date. Most of the 822 blogs written over the last seven plus years inform a book – which, unedited, would now fill three volumes – although practicality will surely demand abridgment to a more pithy text of perhaps 300 pages. The rest of the posts encompass complementary reading and some personal experiences only peripherally related to the larger project. My aim is to delineate a worldview and method, instructed by history’s greatest thinkers, but reconfigured in a form unlike anything currently available, to serve as a guide for a meaningful life. Let’s review the salient points presented so far in roughly chronological order.
First I determined that philosophy for this purpose requires addressing just two fundamental questions: “What is the nature of reality?” and “How should one conduct oneself in the world?” – these being the primary subjects of metaphysics and ethics respectively. Taking the phenomenological approach, I argued that humans experience reality as five levels or domains: (1) internal reality or the self, (2) proximate reality, or the directly perceived world including persons known to us, (3) social/cultural reality or the human world as mostly indirectly encountered, (4) cosmic or scientific reality, including Nature as a whole, and (5) ultimate reality.1 Ethics also has five layers: (1) internal, meaning self-improvement and self-actualization, (2) proximate, meaning behavior towards persons and that portion of nature with which direct contact occurs, (3) social, especially duties within the human community, (4) cosmic, endeavors and responsibilities with regard to the universe, nature as a whole, and science, and (5) supererogatory duty, selfless ethical actions beyond strict social obligations that counter-balance one’s moral imperfection.
Second, for this site, I determined that the highest good (summum bonum) for our species is a combination of lasting happiness (Eudaimonia – the flourishing life) and authentic meaning. From the vast human record I extracted four interlocking factors essential for the summum bonum: (1) Virtue, (2) Purpose, (3) Contentment, and (4) Participation in Ultimate Reality. The first three of these entail various approaches with respect to the first four tiers of reality and all five layers of ethics.
Ultimate reality and our moral prerogative or imperative for participation therein are more complex and more intimately intertwined than the others. Ultimate reality is interpreted very differently by science, philosophy, and religion. 
The scientific perspective distills down to pure physicalism: the opposing poles of the very small – that is what makes up the substance of the universe – and the incomprehensibly large – that is, the cosmos as a whole including its structural, dynamic, and transcendental features. Human participation occurs by means of the study of physical reality and a deep awe and near mystical understanding of existence such as Neil deGrasse Tyson’s ‘cosmic perspective’ – the reflexivity of in-ness of the universe and of ourselves and spiritual stimulus experienced in witnessing the magnificence of creation.
(continued next post)
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1Social and cosmic reality are known mostly second-hand while the others are experienced directly by the individual. This order also roughly parallels the degree of veridical confidence we have in these levels of reality except perhaps ultimate reality when found through introspection.
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