About
B. Scot Rousse is an applied phenomenologist with a PhD from Northwestern, Philosopher in Residence at the Topos Institute, and a long-time Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley. He spent roughly a decade as Director of Research at Pluralistic Networks in Oakland before turning his attention to the Substack he launched in December 2024.
Without Why takes its name from Angelus Silesius's line, 'Die Rose ist ohne warum; sie blühet weil sie blühet.' The publication is sixteen months old, has 789 subscribers, and currently sits at #39 Rising in Philosophy. Rousse posts every three to five days, with daily Notes between.
His project rejects the framing of AI as optimization, alignment, and values, and re-centres the conversation on care, embodied skill, mood, commitment, and a shared 'we'-hood. The lineage is Hubert Dreyfus, Fernando Flores, and Terry Winograd, the philosophers who critiqued the first wave of AI in the seventies and eighties.
He is also a lifelong drummer in three punk bands and a co-founder of the Curiosity Craft nonprofit. A forthcoming hybrid memoir is organised around his mentorships with Dreyfus, Flores, Winograd, and Stuart Dreyfus — what he calls 'the lost art of mentorship.'
Highlights
- Subscribers
- 789 (#39 Rising in Philosophy)
- Cadence
- Post every 3-5 days · daily Notes
- Launched
- December 2024
- Day job
- Philosopher in Residence, Topos Institute
- Lineage
- Dreyfus · Flores · Winograd
Deeper Dive
The headline argument arrives in three threads. 'Beyond Enfeeblement' (April 2026), 'Why Care Matters for AI' (January 2026), and 'Notes on Care' with David Spivak (February 2026) push care, in the Heideggerian sense of Sorge, as the foundation for AI alignment. A parallel thread on human enfeeblement — including 'Machine Consciousness and Human Enfeeblement' and 'AI, Consciousness, and Moral Disorientation' — frames erosion of human capacity, not extinction, as the real near-term risk.
The drumming is not a hobby disclaimer. 'Technology, Nihilism, and Giving a Damn — Part IV: Punk as a Response to Nihilism' (December 2025) ties his life behind the kit to the philosophical work directly. Alongside it sits The Hubert Dreyfus Audio Archive Project, his effort to preserve Dreyfus's lecture audio as 'philosophical foundations for living well in the age of AI.'
Recent talks have moved fast: Kentucky in November, the UW Computational Minds and Machines Lab in January, ASEP 2026 with 'Why Not Brain Rot,' two lectures at the Paris Safe and Ethical AI conference in February, San Francisco's Frontier Tower in March, and a new lecture, 'AI, Care, and Alignment,' on April 17. iai.tv ran his 'A post-work world would be a solipsistic nightmare' the same month.
In Their Words
“The problem with artificial intelligence is (still) that computers don't (yet?) give a damn.”
“The fundamental question of our times is: Will AI enrich or erode our capacities to care?”