Negative Philosophy examines what you can't think your way to — the part of how you function that runs below the level of reading, understanding, or deciding. Each episode works with the philosophical lineage of Spinoza, Gurdjieff, Zen, and the Stoics, alongside Martin Butler's framework for psychological realism. A different quality of attention to what is actually happening — not self-improvement, not optimism. Debbie Butler is a psychologist and practitioner of Negative Philosophy. <br/><br/><a href="https://deborahbutler.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">deborahbutler.substack.com</a>
Negative Philosophy
Claim This Podcastby Deborah Butler
16 episodes
Updated Daily
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Podcast Overview
Negative Philosophy examines what you can't think your way to — the part of how you function that runs below the level of reading, understanding, or deciding. Each episode works with the philosophical lineage of Spinoza, Gurdjieff, Zen, and the Stoics, alongside Martin Butler's framework for psychological realism. A different quality of attention to what is actually happening — not self-improvement, not optimism. Debbie Butler is a psychologist and practitioner of Negative Philosophy. <br/><br/><a href="https://deborahbutler.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">deborahbutler.substack.com</a>
Language
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Publishing Since
7/23/2025
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Recent Episodes
December 12, 2025
My Trauma Christmas List
<p></p><p>1. Scary Santa at the Grotty Grotto - creepy old man with beard fed to small children who are into monsters in stories and nursery rhymes.</p><p>2. Shopping - really? </p><p> Who needs yet another ornament.</p><p> Battling the crowds for that very last toy that your daughter wanted.</p><p> Imagining the pain when she unwraps the Chloe the Cat instead of the Wagalots Kitty that she so desperately wanted. </p><p> Finding ‘yet another’ tie for uncle Bob.</p><p> Fighting - oh yes, fighting for the last of the special brand Tom Smith crackers.</p><p> Food? - That’s another story, later.</p><p> Money? - Do I have enough? Can I really afford a brand new Rolex for the girl or guy I’m trying to impress? The answer is always, no - but you do it anyway.</p><p>3. Sensibility vanished. Any semblance of normality has gone. People rushing, screaming, pushing and even punching to get to the till first, so they can attack another shop in the endless quest for treasure.</p><p>Step back - do you see our primitive ancestors here? - hunters and gatherers, collecting what they can in a greedy frenzy, in case everything runs out. (Impossible I know, but the emotions and that sick feeling in your stomach that this Christmas might be another disaster, keeps driving you on to even more chaos and misery.) Step back - what if there were no Christmas. What if same people remained sane this festive season. I know, unthinkable. However we are Christmas abstainers. Like with any addiction, it can be done.</p><p>This is an addiction, to being part of the tribe, to belonging, to being accepted (although in truth, if you were a fly on the wall when you left the room, you’d pack your bags now and leave). Tribal creatures fear isolation. They feal abandonment. They are weaker alone. When you are weak, I am strong. This is the game being played out every Christmas in the shops and Malls across the world. We are trying to be strong, to puff ourselves up to being the richest, most generous, giver. But all we do is empty our bank accounts for tat.</p><p>The latest in the Christmas farce is Advent. This year, I’ve seen people posting vides of themselves giving advent presents every day in December. Not just little chocolates in Advent Calendars, but big, bold, ribbon festooned luxuries. </p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://deborahbutler.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2">deborahbutler.substack.com/subscribe</a>
December 9, 2025
The Inner Battle - Appetite vs. Desire
<p>Today I want to tell you a secret:</p><p>Most of the things you chase… aren’t actually yours.</p><p>And I’m not talking metaphors, I’m talking Spinoza, biology and the architecture of your mind. Let’s break down the sequence that runs your entire life:</p><p><strong>Essence → Conatus → Appetite → Desire.</strong></p><p>It’s the difference between living according to your nature and living according to a fantasy of yourself. Let’s start at the beginning.</p><p><strong>Essence</strong></p><p>This is your structure. Not your personality. Not your trauma. Not your goals.</p><p>Your structure.</p><p>You didn’t choose it. You can’t negotiate it. It’s the pattern that makes you you. And that pattern expresses itself through Conatus…</p><p><strong>Conatus</strong></p><p>Conatus is your engine — the push to continue, to grow, to increase your power.</p><p>It’s not psychological.</p><p>It’s not spiritual.</p><p>It’s natural law.</p><p>Every part of you — from your cells to your emotional reactions — is trying to persist and expand. And Conatus speaks through two channels: Appetite and Desire.</p><p>One is honest. The other is chaos in a fancy coat.</p><p><strong>Appetite</strong></p><p>Appetite is clean.</p><p>Pure.</p><p>Unpolluted.</p><p>It says:</p><p>* “I need rest.”</p><p>* “I need warmth.”</p><p>* “I need connection.”</p><p>* “I need food.”</p><p>* “I need space.”</p><p>Your body never lies.</p><p>It just wants what increases its real power.</p><p>But… then comes Desire.</p><p><strong>Desire</strong></p><p>Desire is the potential bad-boy because it can become appetite after being kidnapped by imagination.</p><p>Desire says:</p><p>* “Be impressive.”</p><p>* “Push harder.”</p><p>* “Fix yourself.”</p><p>* “Achieve more.”</p><p>* “Be wanted.”</p><p>* “Be seen.”</p><p>* “Be validated.”</p><p>Appetite wants raw power in existence and survival through striving. Desire wants a story, a way to understand what’s going on where there is no understanding other than that we make up in our imagination. And this is why people feel split in half.</p><p><strong>The Split</strong></p><p>Your Essence wants what is natural / Your Desire wants what looks good.</p><p>Your Essence wants rest. / Your Desire wants to perform.</p><p>Your Essence wants connection. / Your Desire wants validation.</p><p>Your Essence wants truth. / Your Desire wants the best, most dramatic, fantasy.</p><p>No wonder you feel tired.</p><p><strong>The Work</strong></p><p>Ask yourself, every time you want something:</p><p><strong>Is this coming from my body…or from a character I’m playing?</strong></p><p>If you remove the audience, do you still want it?</p><p>If you remove the fantasy version of yourself, does the want survive?</p><p>If the answer is no…that wasn’t Desire.</p><p>That was your conditioning wearing lipstick and it’s best dress to impress you and distact you away from the mundane.</p><p>Your life becomes quieter, clearer, saner the moment you listen to Appetite and stop worshipping Desire.</p><p>That’s Spinoza’s freedom:</p><p>Not choosing whatever you want but understanding the machinery behind that want.</p><p>So now, - Off you go.</p><p>Start watching yourself honestly.</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://deborahbutler.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2">deborahbutler.substack.com/subscribe</a>
December 5, 2025
The Ethics Part 3 Proposition 4
<p>Proposition</p><p><strong>No thing can be destroyed except through an external cause.</strong></p><p>Demonstration</p><p>This proposition is self-evident. For the definition of any thing affirms the essence of the thing and does not deny it; that is, it affirms the thing’s existence, not its nonexistence. So, if we attend only to the thing itself, and not to any external causes, we will find nothing in it that could destroy it. Q.E.D.</p><p>Corollary</p><p>Hence it follows that a thing cannot be destroyed by the force of its own nature, but only by an external cause.</p><p>Scholium</p><p>This proposition is clear: for it is one of those axioms that make up the foundation of our reasoning. Indeed, everyone must admit that nothing can destroy itself, but only something else with contrary nature. For example, a man is destroyed by a beast, not by his own human nature.</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://deborahbutler.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2">deborahbutler.substack.com/subscribe</a>
16 total episodes available
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