July 2008
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Nietzsche’s illness
The last few months I’ve been working away at an essay for the Oxford Handbook to Nietzsche. The essay is on Nietzsche’s illness; it’s been a surprisingly hard one to write — difficult to get it right. Here it is, for anyone interested. UPDATE: New and improved (final?) version here. Continue reading
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Doing what you love
Here is a great, widely-circulated essay by Paul Graham on how to do what you love. I’m posting it here now so that, hopefully, I’ll remember to post it also on usuphilosophy.com after the start of Fall semester. Continue reading
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Living biblically
A. J. Jacobs spent a year trying to follow every rule in the Bible. Hear him recount his experiences, and what he learned from them, here. Continue reading
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Ideas & culture
Here’s a question prompted from some conversations with Mike: To what extent do ideas influence the formation of culture? This is a big one, of course. At one extreme we have Hegel, who thought culture, civilization, history, and politics were nothing but the evolution of ideas, like a great big collective consciousness making up its… Continue reading
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Perfect storm?
Read Thomas P.M. Barnett’s view of a possible upcoming war with Iran that “nobody wants but everyone seems to need” here. Continue reading
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When Nietzsche Wept
Just saw the movie last night. The main idea is that Lou Salome is worried about the mental state of her friend Nietzsche, and asks Josef Breuer (a physician beginning to dabble in psychoanalysis) and his friend young Sigmund Freud to help him out of his despair. Breuer has problems of his own, and Nietzsche… Continue reading
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Iran’s missle-rattling
Good TPMB post here diagnosing what’s going on now with Iran. Also, I hope this photo draws a lotta laughs from the international community. Continue reading
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Zarathustra Obama?
Here is an interesting article by Laura Miller in Salon about Obama’s refreshingly broad interest in reading, including the following observation: Obama himself went through a period of “devouring” the work of Nietzsche while living in New York. It’s difficult to say what Obama might have absorbed from the German philosopher, mostly because Nietzsche himself… Continue reading
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Have an über-nice day
Mike has created the perfect image to go on our übermenschen t-shirts, mugs, etc: Continue reading
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SCOTUS review
(That’s Supreme Court Of The United States). Apropos of the discussion over at usuphilosophy.com, here is a NYT review of the decisions handed down over the last term. A leftish-leaning president cannot come fast enough! (There aren’t any genuine leftists in the field; we’re limited to extreme-right, not-so-extreme right, and drifting from time to time… Continue reading
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In the middle of reading:
Composing the Soul, Graham Parkes: this is the book about Nietzsche I wish I could have written. Partly biography, partly philosophical examination, with elegant and erudite connections to Plato, Emerson, Herder, Goethe, and so on. Definitely one of the top Nz books I’ve encountered. Art of Possibility, Benjamin and Roz Zander: got turned on to… Continue reading
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That which does not kill me….
… sure hurts. On Sunday I joined Darrick, Tim, and Janet for a bike ride from Franklin, ID to the summit of Immigration Canyon. Turned out to be about 72 miles round trip, with 4400 feet of climbing in all. I’m proud to say I made it to the top — the hardest ride I’ve… Continue reading
Huenemanniac 