Author Archives: Abigail

About Abigail

Abigail Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of CUNY. She is the author of A Good Look at Evil, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now available in an expanded, revised second edition and as an audiobook. Its thesis is that good people try to live out their stories while evil people aim to mess up good people’s stories. Her latest book, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, illustrated by Caroline Church, explores the thesis in her own life. She writes a weekly column for her blog, “Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column” (www.dearabbie-nonadvice.com) where she explains why human lives are in fact quite interesting. She’s the editor of the posthumously published Consolations of Philosophy: Hobbes’s Secret; Spinoza’s Way by Henry M. Rosenthal, her father. Some of her articles can be accessed at https://brooklyn-cuny.academia.edu/AbigailMartin . She is married to Jerry L. Martin, also a philosopher. They live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Death Frames the Story

Posted on July 7, 2026 by Abigail

In Death is But a Dream, the report of research by Christopher Kerr that I wrote about last week, the author’s interviews with the dying tell of reunions between the dying and those they cared about who had predeceased … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, Industrial Revolution, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mortality vs immortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, seventeenth century, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged afterlife and judgment, afterlife and truthfulness, credibility of the dying in law, cultural implications of personal survival, cultural implications of surviving death, cynicism vs realistic idealism, cynicism vs self-empowerment, death and medieval jurisprudence, death and modernity, death and postmodern assumptions, death and standard medical view, death as the end, Death is But a Dream by Christopher Kerr, death not the end, death of a father, deathbed experiences, deathbed reunions, deathbed visions deemed hallucinations, deathbed visions medically viewed, deathbed witnesses, dying and romance, dying and true love, dying brings out the true self, dying brings out the truth, dying foregrounds character, evidences of survival, fantasies vs realistic hopes, feelings of the dying, implications of immortality, introducing one’s love to departed parents, introducing wife to deceased mother, last kiss, last words of the dying, legal credibility of the dying, life is not meaningless, lives as nonfiction stories, love does not die, lovers separated by death, meaninglessness no longer in style, research into death and dying, reunions of the dying and the dead, romance doesn’t die, surviving death and living meaningfully, surviving death is culturally respectable, the dying and divine judgment, the dying have nothing to lose, the dying presumed not to lie, true love and dying, Visions Trips and Crowded Rooms by David Kessler, witnesses to deathbed experience | 2 Comments

We Don’t Die When We Die

Posted on June 30, 2026 by Abigail

It’s not over. One thing is certain. When we talk, when we act, when we commit ourselves to any project – big or small – when we retire for the night or rise for the day: sooner or later our … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, Industrial Revolution, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mortality vs immortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, seventeenth century, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged afterlife unknowns, Atheism, Caitlin Gibson’s The Washington Post article on deathbed visions, Christopher Kerr’s Death is But a Dream, credible deathbed experiences, cultural assumptions, cultural changes if death is not the end, cultural implications of surviving death, cultural worldview, Darwinian implications, death and taxes, death unpredictable, deathbed experiences, deathbed mending of misused life, deathbed moral repair, deathbed reunions with cherished places, deathbed reunions with departed friends, deathbed reunions with friends killed in battle, dying different for each person, end of story, end of the line, End-of-Life, exiting present time-and-space conditions, facing the past, fashionable nihilism, fashionable reductionism, fixing the past, hallucinations vs deathbed experiences, human mortality, intelligent survivors, interviewing the terminally ill, interviews of the dying, it ain’t over until it’s over, life concerns the living, manner of death unforeseeable, modern assumptions, modern emotional style, modern moral parameters, modern nihilism, modernity’s repressed nihilism, mortality not the end, oversimplifying human complexities, Philosophical Materialism, reductionism, refusing reductionism, repairing the past, research into dying, surviving death, surviving death and making life count, surviving death and reconceiving power, surviving death and revising the narrative, surviving death and social implications, surviving death vs nihilism, surviving death vs the absurd, the dead still concerned, the dead supposedly unconcerned, the great unknown, the nothing-but fallacy, where personal control stops | 1 Comment

Dreams about Real Life

Posted on June 23, 2026 by Abigail

The night before we left for California, I had what may be the strangest dream I ever dreamed: I was in a passenger plane – flying who knows where – until the airplane was split in two by a lightning … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, Industrial Revolution, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, seventeenth century, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged age of reason, anti-semitism as anti-colonialism, anti-semitism in the Age of Enlightenment, anti-semitism in the Romantic period, anti-semitism inventing deicide, anti-semitism reflecting the Zeitgeist, anti-semitism the same through outward changes, anti-semitism through history, cast thyself down, decoding dreams, don’t test God, dream figure representing anti-semitism, dreams, dreams decoded by experts, dreams self-decoded, dreams that fulfill diagnostic expectations, Freudian dreams, Freudian psychoanalysis, Freudians and New York fashions, God and air travel, God not liking ugly, God’s anger at anti-semitism, gospel hymn I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, history of anti-semitism, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, interpreting one’s own dreams, Jesus declines to test God, Jew-hatred unchanged in a changing world, Jewish assimilation and the Holocaust, Jungian dreams, lightning and God’s anger, lightning as heaven-shattering, lightning splitting the sky, meaningful dreams, newest form of oldest hatred, oldest hatred, plane crash, post-Darwinian anti-semitism, precognitive dreams, rabbinic Judaism denies concept of collective guilt, rabbinic Judaism denies concept of hereditary guilt, reproaching Holocaust victims, reproaching Israelis as colonialists, reproaching Jews in their ancient home as colonialists, sibling rivalry as theology, Temptation of Jesus, testing God’s believed favoritism, the chosen people, the Chosen People and perennial resentment, turnover-gendered person, undiscovered island, veridical dreams | 1 Comment

Grief, Martha Nussbaum, and Me

Posted on June 16, 2026 by Abigail

Abbie is away this week getting treatments in California. This column was originally posted on February 13, 2024, and continues to be timely. Recently, I’ve been reading a highly-regarded woman philosopher whose name is Martha C. Nussbaum. MCN is, along … Continue reading →

Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, self-deception, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged a mother's death, afterlife reunions, ancient philosophers, being born is hard, classicist, death as not the end, death as the end, deathbed farewell, demands interrupting grief, dream announcing a death, dream visit, dream visit from loved one, dreams with conflicting interpretations, dying as difficult, dying is hard, emotional realities, emotions as informative, emotions as instructive, Epicureans, fear of abandonment, filial piety, getting born as difficult, grief and being orphaned, grief and picking up the pieces, grief as abandonment, grief as anger, grieving a parent, honoring one's mother, hospice staff, intellectual pioneer, interpreting dreams, losing one's mother, love for one's mother, Marth Nussbaum's Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, Martha Nussbaum, missing the deathbed, mother/daughter relation, mourning and guilt, mourning and self-reproach, mourning one's mother, orphan syndrome, out of body experiences, paranormal vision, philosophy as therapy, precognitive dream visit, self-reproach, status of mothers, Stoics, the chores of mourning, the work of mourning, unreasonable anger, waiting for the afterlife, where I am death is not, woman academic, woman philosopher | Leave a comment

A Liberated Woman

Posted on June 9, 2026 by Abigail

Abbie’s talk at Stony Brook. Homer’s World The first time I came out in public as a feminist, I was an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The State University of New York at Stony Brook. For some reason, I had … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, seventeenth century, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged "Feminism Without Contradictions", a book loses magnetism, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Feminism Without Contradictions" in The Monist, academic feminist, Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, becoming a free woman, biblical Israel, Biblical Israel and Homer’s world, Biblical Israel missing from map of ancient world, breaking taboos, breaking the ice, clothes as a statement, directive to throw a book out, Divine command to discard a book, Divine directive, dodging a divine command, dress for success, dress to impress, feminism in academe, feminism in philosophical journal, feminist, feminist stage performance, Fulbright in Paris, Fulbright scholars, Fulbright women, Greta Thunberg in book about ancient world, Homer and Isaiah contemporaries, Homer's Iliad, Homer's Odyssey, liberated woman, magnetism of a book, maps of Homer’s world, new book on Homer’s women, obeying a divine command, Odysseus comes home, Penelope and Odysseus, Penelope in The Odyssey, Penelope’s shrewdness in the Odyssey, Penelope’s strategy with the suitors, performing on stage, philosophy at Stony Brook, second wave feminism, self-liberation, sensing God’s presence, Simone de Beauvoir, songs for the feminist movement, Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, woman philosophy professor, women and dressing to impress, women in Homer, women's liberation, women’s liberation from false authority, women’s liberation from false narratives | 2 Comments

Traumatic Memories: Past and Future

Posted on June 2, 2026 by Abigail

I used to take pride in my excellent memory. But sadly, it got somewhat less excellent after my first marriage. Perhaps my psyche decided that certain scenes from that part of my life story were best left un-remembered. With regard … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, seventeenth century, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged abused children and PTSD, anti-semitism and higher education, anti-semitism as cultural inheritance, anti-semitism as ongoing trauma, anti-semitism as the return of the repressed, anti-semitism in universities, biochemical markers of Holocaust trauma, biochemical markers of trauma, brain function and trauma, C-PTSD, consciousness-raising groups, cultural attitudes toward trauma, domestic abuse and law, global anti-semitism, healing trauma, Herzl’s vision of a Jewish state, Holocaust trauma, Holocaust victims, increasing anti-semitism, inherited trauma, intergenerational trauma, Israel’s resistance to anti-semitism, Israeli Nobel Prize winners, Jewish resistance to anti-semitism, Judith L. Herman’s Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, laws against marital rape, laws against wife-beating, lighting a candle vs cursing the darkness, memories of suffering, memory, memory loss, Oct 7 2023, Oct 8 2023, October 7-8, ongoing traumatizing events, past trauma, Peter A. Levine’s Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past, political history of trauma, post-Holocaust suppression of anti-semitism, psychic forgetting and trauma, psychic oubliettes, PTSD, PTSD and combat veterans, return of the repressed, social anti-semitism, Theodore Herzl, therapy for memory loss, therapy for trauma, third-generation Holocaust trauma, training trauma healers, trauma after Hamas atrocities, trauma and brain malfunction, trauma and memory, trauma healing before and after, trauma therapy, traumas past and present, traumas present and future, traumatic memory, unbearable psychic wounds, universities and anti-Israel demonstrations, world-wide anti-semitism, Zionism | 1 Comment

The Lot of Women

Posted on May 27, 2026 by Abigail

A line comes to mind that I first heard spoken in the alabaster French of the Comédie-Française, many years ago in the Paris of my youth: Do you not pity the lot of women? Le sort des femmes … the … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged academic feminism, academic merit, academic retaliation, ambivalence of feminists, Andrea Dworkin’s Heartbreak, believing the woman, Bill Clinton, Catharine A. MacKinnon, Catherine Chalier, Clinton accused of rape, Comédie-Française, distinctions can get blurry, Emmanuel Levinas, faculty feminist group, feminism and changes in the law, feminism in academe, feminist bloc, feminist distinctions can get blurry, feminist friends, feminist hypocrisy, feminist idealism, feminist politics, feminist real life, feminists betraying women, fired for voting wrong, firing not merit-based, French feminists, Gertrude Ezorsky, in-house academic politics, independent investigation, Juanita Broaddrick, le sort des femmes, marital rape, merit-based firing, NY Times letter, Parisian feminists, Philosophy Department of City University’s Brooklyn College, Phyllis Chesler, political loyalty and feminism, political reprisals in academe, politics of feminism, rape and feminism, rape in marriage, sexual harassment, the destiny of women, the lot of women, victims of feminism, victims of sexism, wife battering, women controlling women, women in academia, women’s bloc | 2 Comments

The Lot of Women

Posted on May 26, 2026 by Abigail

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged academic feminism, academic merit, academic retaliation, ambivalence of feminists, Andrea Dworkin’s Heartbreak, believing the woman, Bill Clinton, Catharine A. MacKinnon, Catherine Chalier, Clinton accused of rape, Comédie-Française, distinctions can get blurry, Emmanuel Levinas, faculty feminist group, feminism and changes in the law, feminism in academe, feminist bloc, feminist distinctions can get blurry, feminist friends, feminist hypocrisy, feminist idealism, feminist politics, feminist real life, feminists betraying women, fired for voting wrong, firing not merit-based, French feminists, Gertrude Ezorsky, in-house academic politics, independent investigation, Juanita Broaddrick, le sort des femmes, marital rape, merit-based firing, NY Times letter, Parisian feminists, Philosophy Department of City University’s Brooklyn College, Phyllis Chesler, political loyalty and feminism, political reprisals in academe, politics of feminism, rape and feminism, rape in marriage, sexual harassment, the destiny of women, the lot of women, victims of feminism, victims of sexism, wife battering, women controlling women, women in academia, women’s bloc | Leave a comment

A Quarrel That Mattered

Posted on May 19, 2026 by Abigail

It was Jean-Paul Sartre who wrote, “A quarrel does not matter.” He was writing about a friend with whom he had broken. I believe it was Maurice Merleau-Ponty of whose death he had just learned. And, in the same commemorative … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Abigail L Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, Abigail L Rosenthal’s Spoiling One’s Story: The Case of Hannah Arendt, affective ties, avoiding hope to prevent disappointment, being above moral judgement, bracketing moral questions, broken friendship, combating malice, comfortable with solitude, consequential fork in the road, credible lies, death preventing reconciliation, deep quarrels, destructive lies, destructive lies that are believed, dodging disappointment, envy and defamation, envy and friendship, envy and social influence, existentialists, existentialists vs rationalists, exonerating nazis, feeling ties, finding meaning in history, finding meaning in real life, friends who quarrel, friends who share memories, friendship and disloyalty, friendship betrayed, friendship over professional ambition, friendships between philosophers, friendships with history, getting above bourgeois morality, getting above chronology, getting above history, getting above morality, Hannah Arendt, Hegelian view of history, Hegelians, Heideggerians, Jean-Paul Sartre, jumping the tenses, lifelong friends, loyalty and friendship, meeting in cafes, Merleau-Ponty, moral relativism vs wickedness, Nietzschians, Nihilists, non-conformism, nonjudgementalism vs conscious evil, not asking life to make sense, opposing evil, personal force, persuasive lies, philosopher friends, philosophers of history, philosophic differences, philosophic differences and real life consequences, philosophic differences that become consequential, philosophic irrationalism, philosophic rationale for personal betrayal, Plato is dear but truth is dearer, premature transcendence, pulling meaning out of real situations, quarrel between friends, quarrel unresolved, quarrels that don’t matter, quarrels that matter, refusal to judge, refusing to judge, rights and wrongs and friendship, seeking meaning in real situations, solitude on an arctic island, superficial quarrels, surviving alone in the arctic wilderness, the bad guys who seem to win, the real is not the rational, the real is the rational, the Viking model, transcendence as evasion, transcending moral norms, transcending right and wrong, truth and friendship, truth and philosophic friendship, twin opposites, Viking attitudes, women friends, women philosophers, women philosophers who are friends, women philosophers who were friends | 2 Comments

Five Coins in the Fountain

Posted on May 12, 2026 by Abigail

Before feminism, girls in America were expected to be “popular.” But exceptionally, in my high school, I got an exemption. So, what high school did I go to? At that time, it was generally thought both democratic and fair to … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, seventeenth century, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal’s Confessions of a Young Philosopher, activities for college credit, anti-feminist bigotry, artistic vulnerability, brainwashing, breaking women’s silence, Bronx High School of Science, commodification of women, courtship and self-disguise, dreams of a wedding night, eligibility for gifted high schools, expected to be popular, extracurricular activities, fear of losing femininity, feminine vulnerability, femininity and innocence, femininity as a duty, femininity as a skill, femininity at risk, Feminism, feminist manifesto, gifted young painter, girls and good books, girls with good minds, girls you can’t fool, high school dreams, high school Literary Club, husbands controlling wives, imaginary fears, imaginary fears and real dangers, innocence lost, intellectual girls, intelligent unsentimental girls, intuitive sensitive women and vulnerability, intuitive young woman, losing innocence, marital brainwashing, marital domination and victimization, not forced to be popular, obligation to be feminine, old maid, originality vs femininity, path-breaking vs femininity, planning to be wonderful, poetic and romantic young woman, poetic young woman, popular girls, post-marital muddying of painter’s colors, prefeminist self-blame in women, public schools for the gifted, putting husband through grad school, reading good books, romance in Rome, romantic dreams, romantic hopes, Rome’s Fontana di Trevi, sexism, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Stepford wives, surviving feminism, surviving pre-feminism, teenage ambitions, the art of womanhood, the freedom of wives, The High School of Music and Art, the silence of women, the vulnerability of being feminine, three coins in the fountain, true love and the Fountain of Trevi, wedding night disappointment, wedding night hopes, wedding night reproaches, wedding night virginity, wife as patient, wife of a young doctor, wifehood and mental health, willed vulnerability, wives and women’s liberation, wives hiding their beliefs, women and self-condemnation, women friends, women not shocked by life, women who live up to their promise, women’s post-marital erasure, women’s stories | 2 Comments

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