Private Study

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 in Political Science, University of Toronto · Political Theory & International Relations · Collaborative degree in Jewish Studies

Sustained, serious study

Private Study is the most direct way to work with Michael: a guided reading relationship built around the texts, thinkers, and questions you want to understand.

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.

Begin with one session, or build momentum

A single session is useful for a specific question or first meeting. Packages are better for real study.

Single Session

$250

One 60-minute session. Best for an initial conversation, a specific passage, or deciding whether longer study makes sense.

Inquire — Single Session →

Ten Sessions

$2,000
For sustained study

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.

Inquire — Ten Sessions →
Private Study is for reading, formation, interpretation, and intellectual development. For institutional questions or applied advisory work with specific stakes, see Counsel. For groups, salons, firms, or events, request a private seminar.

Serious readers, at every stage

What you can study

Sessions can be organized around a book, an author, a tradition, or a live intellectual question.

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.

Serious teaching, real readers

“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.”

— Sasha, Software Engineer

“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.”

— Steve, Investor

Close reading, not coaching

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.

Prefer a different path?

Complete Course Archive

Prefer to study independently? Get lifetime access to the complete Millerman School archive: 20+ courses and hundreds of hours of lectures.

View the Course Archive →

Private Seminars & Speaking

Hosting a salon, firm, institution, private club, investor circle, conference, or serious local group? Request Michael for a private seminar.

Request a Seminar →

Inquire about private study

Write a short note about what you want to read, what you want to understand, or where you're getting stuck. Michael responds personally.