Read difficult books with a serious guide.
One-on-one private study in political philosophy with Dr. Michael Millerman. For people who want to work through serious texts directly, carefully, and without academic fog.
PHD, POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO · POLITICAL THEORY & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS · COLLABORATIVE DEGREE IN JEWISH STUDIES
You bring a text, a thinker, a question, or a difficulty. We build a reading path around it. Then we meet regularly over weeks or months to work through the material together.
Sessions are 60 minutes by video. Most students meet weekly or biweekly. The work is personalized: a reader returning to Plato after twenty years needs something different from a founder thinking about power, a student wrestling with Strauss, or an independent scholar trying to finally read Heidegger seriously.
The point is not to collect summaries. It is to learn how to read, interpret, and think with books that repay serious attention.
Single Session
One 60-minute session. Best for an initial conversation, a specific passage, or deciding whether longer study makes sense.
Five SessionsMOST COMMON
Five 60-minute sessions, scheduled at your pace. The right fit for most students: enough time to make progress on a text, thinker, or theme.
Ten Sessions
Ten 60-minute sessions for students who want a more complete arc: a book, a major thinker, or a structured path through a philosophical problem.
PRIVATE STUDY IS FOR READING, FORMATION, INTERPRETATION, AND INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. FOR INSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS OR APPLIED ADVISORY WORK WITH SPECIFIC STAKES, SEE MILLERMAN INTELLIGENCE. FOR GROUPS, SALONS, FIRMS, OR EVENTS, REQUEST A PRIVATE SEMINAR.
- Readers returning to philosophy who want guidance through the great books
- Students and independent scholars who want serious engagement outside institutional filters
- People working through a specific thinker — Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Strauss, Schmitt, Dugin — who want a teacher, not a summary
- Founders, investors, executives, and professionals who want philosophy to sharpen interpretation and judgment
- Anyone finished with secondhand takes who wants to read the books themselves
Classical foundations
Plato, Aristotle, political rule, regime types, virtue, justice, and the philosophical life.
Modern crisis
Nietzsche, Heidegger, technology, nihilism, liberalism, and the spiritual condition of modernity.
Political interpretation
Strauss, Schmitt, Dugin, sovereignty, ideology, geopolitics, and the hidden assumptions behind public life.
"Michael's enthusiasm for the real-world import of philosophy is immediately palpable, and his command of a wide range of material, and fluency expressing it, is rare... An absolutely excellent teacher."
"One of the major things I got out of the course was learning how to read these books in a way that you understand and see more than you would have on your own."
This is close reading and serious conversation with Millerman, scheduled around your life, focused on texts and questions that repay sustained attention. It's not a credentialed program. It's not therapy (although philosophizing together can be therapeutic!) You can think of it as having a mature study partner.
Complete Course Archive
Prefer to study independently? Get lifetime access to the complete Millerman School archive: 20+ courses and hundreds of hours of lectures.
Private Seminars & Speaking
Hosting a salon, firm, institution, private club, investor circle, conference, or serious local group? Request Michael for a private seminar.
Write a short note about what you want to read, what you want to understand, or where you're getting stuck.
"If you're not sure whether this is for you, write anyway and say so. The first conversation is where we figure that out."
