Philosopher & Author
In 2009 I started to study philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. In July 2015, I successfully defended my master thesis about the metaphysics in Hannah Arendt’s thinking. Looking back at my determination to study philosophy, it most certainly has been one of the best decisions of my life. It has left me with essential life-experiences that do not have any monetary or material value, but on the contrary, have enriched my life with the intrinsic value of meaning.
It is this intrinsic value of meaning that I wish to share with the world, and I do so with this personal blog. Dorudi.nl is one of the vehicles that I have at my disposal to publish my thoughts, to widen and share my perspective, and to let my voice be heard in the world. A world that all of us create and shape every single day. The five categories of this website reflect the main topics of my thought and engagement in the world.
Philosophy, to me, is all about thinking. It is about finding meaning in the world’s phenomena as well as in the finite human life. It is about acting morally right in a world that we have to share with all other creatures inhabiting the earth: the only home we have.
Critical Thinking is about sovereignty and sapere aude: daring to know — or daring to be wise — by knowing-not-to-know, by continually examining our prejudices, by putting them on trial, by testing them against a criterion that is bigger than us. In doing so, we can transform our prejudices into tested judgments.
Intersectionality, to me, is an analytical tool that helps to uncover the unequal power relations connected to the different social and political identities. Identities that have been constructed based on myths to categorize people into groups and reduce them to the characteristics of these categories. As a woman who is part of the political movement called feminism, my personal life is determined continuously and often barricaded by the traditional images of the feminine. These barricades are the myths of ‘Woman.’ I fight these mythical representations of women because, although widely held, they represent the false belief that half of the world’s population is less capable than the other half. It is the idea that the group of ‘women’ is homogenous and not equipped to understand the world, to take sovereign decisions, to have agency and to envision a better world, and therefore needs to be dominated by the group of ‘men.’
Favourite Quotes is my selection of quotes from all the books I (re)read. These quotes inspire me, and by sharing them, I hope to invite my readers to read these books.
Thought Shadows are the beginnings of my thoughts. They are the first steps into the process of putting my prejudices on trial.