Meanings of life / death / social & moral stuff
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On gay marriage
Recently I sat in on a debate about gay marriage. It failed in the noble end of giving everyone in the audience a more complete picture of the arguments and concerns surrounding the issue, but it did at any rate give me the chance to organize my own thoughts on the issue. It seems to Continue reading
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“Reason, Genealogy, and the Hermeneutics of Magnanimity”
Brandom, “Reason, Genealogy, and the Hermeneutics of Magnanimity” Wow, that is a mouthful, and the talk does feature some elaborate (if not baroque) constructions with complex concepts. But the underlying ideas are clear and powerful. Robert Brandom argues (the start of his talk is about at 9:44) that there may seem to be irreconcilable differences Continue reading
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Death of Socrates
The Phaedo concerns one of the most powerful ideas a human being can encounter: the idea of one’s own nonexistence. Socrates is about to die. Any of us in his situation would take seriously the possibility that death is really death, meaning that when one dies, nothing survives. There is no afterlife, no heaven, no Continue reading
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From Jacques Barzun to his grandson
Recalled here: “When you have worked through it, by further reflection and some decision as to the immediate future it will turn into something like a path marked on a map, to be followed for a good while and possibly for the rest of your life. To put it another way, you will have made Continue reading
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Rise (and Aeschylean failure) of the guardians
Last week my family watched Rise of the Guardians. The idea is that there are guardians on Earth who preserve important ideals: Santa Claus (wonder), the Easter Bunny (hope), the Sandman (dreams), and the Tooth Fairy (memory, stored in teeth). Then there’s Jack Frost, and nobody knows what he’s good for, including himself. (Spoiler: turns Continue reading
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Living under a boundless sky
I was rooting around today in an old zip drive and found an initial attempt at what I presented several years ago upon being promoted to professor. I ended up delivering something weirder (see here), but I was happy to come across these thoughts, and the fresh recollection of Zane Pautz. So, for what it’s Continue reading
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A. E. Housman was a wise man
(taken from Kronman’s Education’s End) The pleasures of the intellect are notoriously less vivid than either the pleasures of sense or the pleasures of the affections; and therefore, especially in the season of youth, the pursuit of knowledge is likely enough to be neglected and lightly esteemed in comparison with other pursuits offering much stronger Continue reading
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Storm
My filmmaker brother sent me a link to this YouTube. As a complete coincidence, I also had the chance to talk today to my dear friend Rick, the poet and godscourge, who could well have written Minchin’s script. What am I saying, “coincidence”? It is clearly some sort of harmonic convergence. Continue reading
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Thomas P. M. Barnett on U.S and China
I have been a fan of Barnett’s geopolitical insights since I saw his TED talk. I just came across something he offered in a Q & A forum over on Wikistrat, and was encouraged by the following A to a posted Q: Q: Greg R. Lawson – Dr. Barnett, I have always been struck by Continue reading
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Soto, “Looking around, Believing”
Re-posted, from 3quarksdaily: Looking Around, Believing How strange that we can begin at any time. With two feet we get down the street. With a hand we undo the rose. With an eye we lift up the peach tree And hold it up to the wind — white blossoms At our feet. Like today. Continue reading
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Trying to become what you is
I was in Seattle over this past weekend, and anyone walking the downtown streets could not fail to notice that about 1 in 10 people were dressed like Japanese manga characters. It was “Sakura Con 2012”, where hundreds of people dress up and share their enthusiasm for fantasy. It was fun to see their costumes Continue reading
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Reflections on Tolkien
Yesterday my family and I watched all three Lord of the Rings movies, pretty much end to end, though taking necessary breaks for eating walking, and discussing. The event was a a bit like an event a friend of mine used to host, where a small group listened to Wagner’s Ring cycle over a weekend, Continue reading
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Thought for the day
“Now however much great and small worries fill up human life, and keep it in constant agitation and restlessness, they are unable to mask life’s inadequacy to satisfy the spirit; they cannot conceal the emptiness and superficiality of existence, or exclude boredom which is always ready to fill up every pause granted by care.” (Schopenhauer) Continue reading
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Sage words from Morris Cohen
…in a 1919 edition of The New Republic (thanks to a lead on Leiter’s blog). Cohen was writing, under the pseudonym “Philonous”, in response to someone who had said that those not in ardent support of post-war efforts to rebuild were “slackers”: My fellow philosophers for the most part are too ready to assert that Continue reading
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The discomfort of nothing
Sometimes, in a conspiratorial tone, I reveal to my students that the Great Big Philosophical Question – the baddest of all bad asses – is “Why is there something rather than nothing?” But I think an equivalent question is whether something can ever turn into nothing, even though somehow this question doesn’t sound as profound. Continue reading
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“Better never to have been”
A couple of students and I are reading David Benatar’s Better Never to Have Been, alongside our reading of Schopenhauer, which, among all the ways of passing sunny summer days, must count among the most inappropriate. Benatar’s book is an argument for the claim that bringing people into existence causes them harm. He admits that, Continue reading
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What my son and I have learned playing baseball
1. Throw like you mean it. Every time. Point your opposite shoulder where it’s going, focus on the other guy’s glove, and throw hard. Throwing a ball is the glory of man. 2. If the ball is hit near you, go for it, get under it, scramble for it, like your pants are on fire. Continue reading
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Teaching in the Buzz
Young people live in a cloud of stimulation laced with data. Facebook, Twitter, the web generally, cell phones, iPods – let’s call them collectively “the Buzz”. The Buzz has many virtues, but one unfortunate consequence (noted often) is that many Buzzers do not have the time, and sometimes not even the capacity, to think long Continue reading
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The party-pooper principle
The more I think about it, the more I am inclined to adopt the following operational principle: THE PARTY-POOPER PRINCIPLE: Given two, roughly-equal theories, the one that is less attractive is more likely to be true. Theories can be attractive in a variety of ways. Some theories meet deep-seated wishes, like the wish for immortality, Continue reading
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Not minding no meaning
Recently I came across two items that have caused me to reflect on what makes me want to keep living. The first was an article by Galen Strawson, “Why I have no future,” published in The Philosophers’ Magazine (12 October 2009). Strawson’s first sentence says it all: “If, in any normal, non-depressed period of life, Continue reading
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Laudan, Truth, error, and criminal law
I’m just about finished with this book, and I’ve found it very interesting. Laudan approaches the legal process with strictly epistemological interests, asking whether it’s a good system if what we’re after is convicting bad guys and not convicting good guys. On the whole the answer is “no,” so he engages in some speculation about Continue reading
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Atheists’ hymn
(Thanks to Kevin Doyle.) Continue reading
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Aphorism #3
“One day it will be as if you’ve never been.” Wrap your head around that, Jack, and you’re well along the road to wisdom. Continue reading
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More Saramago
Some time ago I had occasion to celebrate Jose Saramago’s novel, The Cave. I just came across an interesting interview with Saramago, where I learned he wrote a novel entitled The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. Reis is one of Pessoa’s alter egos. Excerpt: But the truth is that we all have to Continue reading
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When spring returns
When spring returns Perhaps I will no longer be in the world. Today I wish I could think of Spring as a person So that I could imagine her crying for me When she sees that she’s lost her only friend. But Spring isn’t even a thing: It’s a manner of speaking. Not even the Continue reading
Huenemanniac 