Category Archives: American politics
Philosophy’s Refugees
Last night, I finished reading David Edmond’s book, the one subtitled The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle, to which he gave the more sensational title, The Murder of Professor Schlick. Moritz Schlick was in his forties when he … 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, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, 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, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged academic politics, academic refugees, antisemitism and Vienna Circle, Austria’s modern political history, Can we know the past?, classical vs modern relation of philosophy students to teachers, confining truth to sense experience, consistency proof, conventional existence, Das Man, David Edmond’s The Murder of Professor Schlick, following the argument where it leads, foundationalism in philosophy, Heidegger and Husserl, Heidegger Rector at Freiburg, Heidegger’s authenticity, Heidegger’s Being toward Death, Heidegger’s betrayal of Husserl, Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, Heidegger’s Jewish students, Heidegger’s nazism, honoring one’s mentors, How reliable is history?, judgements of character, Karl Popper, knowledge of imperceptible things, knowledge of probability, knowledge of the external world, Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, logical positivism, losing the argument and winning the truth, mathematical logic, meaninglessness for Vienna Circle, metaphysics as nonsense, nazification of Vienna, occupational hazard, philosophic reductionism, philosophy and good character, political history of Vienna, refugees, refugees from nazism, Rudolf Carnap, scientific criteria of truth, shallow existence, simplification isn’t simple, Socrates Plato and Aristotle honoring their mentors, soundness of character judgements, The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle, the test of argument, truth and validity for the Vienna Circle, twentieth-century European political history, Vienna Circle, Vienna Circle against metaphysics, Vienna Circle and nonsense, Vienna Circle as refugees, Vienna Circle Certitudes vs Heideggerian Authenticity, Vienna Circle’s exclusion of nonsense, Vienna Circle’s philosophic claims, Vienna’s modern political history, winning or losing the argument, winning or losing the truth, winning the argument and losing the truth, World War II refugees
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Deep versus Shallow
One time I asked David Stove, a philosopher at Sydney University’s Department of Traditional and Modern Philosophy, whether he thought there were such things as foundational truths – propositions that underlay and supported the edifice of human knowledge. … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, 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, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, 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, 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
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Tagged adolescent depth, agonizing depth, Albert Einstein, anti-semitism and the Vienna Circle, assimilating inherited stuff, assimilating one’s inheritance, Athenian Theater, barefoot tree climbing, British philosophizing, children dueling, Continental philosophizing, Darwin and the irrational, Darwinian racism, David Stove, decluttering a life, decluttering life review, deep calls to deep, deep vs shallow, Department of Traditional and Modern Philosophy at Sydney University, disposing of inherited things, dueling with branches, emotional attachments vs simplifying, family inheritance, foundational truths, Frank Ramsey, Freud and modernity, Freud and the zeitgeist, Freud as fashionable, Freudian seduction, heroes and villains, how a gentleman reads philosophy, ideal simplicity and real life complexity, ignorance is bliss, implausablity of Oedipus Complex, improvised furniture, influence of theories, internalizing Freud, keeping it simple, keeping life simple and intelligible, kid stuff, kid’s naïveté vs adolescent depth, life lessons of childhood, living on a shoestring, losing your nerve, Max Planck, metaphysics as nonsense, minimalist life strategy, modernism and Sigmund Freud, modernity and the Vienna Circle, naïveté of children, Niels Bohr, Oedipus and Jocasta, Oedipus complex, Oedipus kills his father, Oedipus marries his mother, Oedipus Rex, philosophical depth vs kid stuff, philosophy and scientific progress, philosophy’s cultural imprint, pre-nazi Vienna, profaning the sacred, psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis as a science, quest for foundations, Ramsey’s Oedipus Complex, search for foundations, selling the Brooklyn Bridge, Sophocles, spareness vs the intrusions of stuff, Sydney University, the best and the brightest, the Cambridge Apostles, The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle by David Edmonds, the Trad and Mod Staff Club, the verification principle, The Vienna Circle, the Vienna Circle contra metaphysics, theory of mathematics, tragedy of King Oedipus, transvaluation of values, Vienna Circle and meaninglessness, well-balanced superficiality, Werner Heisenberg, winning by keeping your nerve
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Jesus
I never tried to arrive at settled convictions about Jesus of Nazareth. Being Jewish, I saw no need to do that, except for holding a few broad-stroke opinions about certain views associated with Christianity. For example, take the belief that … 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 God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, 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
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Tagged "woman" not a social construct, 2000 year theology of contempt, Abel’s sacrifice accepted, anti-Jewish redactor of Matthew 27:25, anti-Jewish redactors of New Testament, anti-semitism and culture’s Ultimate, anti-semitism as cultural fashion, anti-semitism post October 7, asymmetrical erotic relations, asymmetrical personal relations, Cain and Abel, Cain’s sacrifice not accepted, campus anti-semitism, Chrisitian theology of contempt, christian doctrines, Christian self assessment as loving, Christian theology, Christian-Jewish friendships, crucifixion and Original Sin, cultural health, cultural pathology, culture and it’s Absolute, culture’s sense of meaning of life, culture’s Ultimate, Eden expulsion as analysis of human condition, fraternal rivalry, fratricide, Hegel’s cultural diagnostic, Hegelian questions, hillbilly gospel, historical Jesus, history and moral responsibility, interfaith discussions, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Jew, Jesus vs Chrisitian anti-semitism, Jewish doctrines, Jewish view of good and evil, Jewish view of the Fall, Jewish view of the Garden of Eden, Jewish view of the Tree of Knowledge, Jewish views of Jesus, Jewish views of Original Sin, Jewish/Christian competition, let sleeping dogs lie, longest hatred, mindless groupthink, mission of Jesus, moral responsibility in Genesis, New Testament redactors, New Testament scholarship, nonsectarian surface and religious depth, October 7, original sin, Original Sin not a Jewish doctrine, Paul and Original Sin, Pauline claims and Judaism, phenomenon of anti-semitism, politics of early Christianity, politics of religion, Pontius Pilate, recent New Testament scholarship, religious depths of nonsectarian opinion, sacred and profane in culture, sources of recent anti-semitism, the Garden of Eden and the human condition, the human condition in Biblical stories, the record of Christianity and Judaism, theological disputes, theology of anti-semitism, two sons of Adam and Eve, understanding a culture through its view of the Absolute, What is sacred in a culture?, what Jesus believed, William Nicholls’ Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate
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Passionate Intensity
In 1919, William Butler Yeats wrote a poem with two lines that came to seem more timely as the century wore on: The best lack all conviction, while The worst are full of passionate intensity. Within little more than a … 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 God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, 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, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, 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
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Tagged American Revolution, anger on the right, approval on the left, atrocity envy, authoritarian shortcuts, being woke, Ben Franklin’s warning, best lack all conviction, binary as accusation, Brooklyn College of CUNY, Brooklyn Connections, can’t take a joke, cancel culture, conformism, crowd pathology, culture of suspicion, defeatism, defending democratic norms, defending human rights, defending liberal arts, defending the oppressed, democracy vs mob rule, denouncers denounced, dream as an argument, dream illustration, dream of Metropolitan Museum, dream providing an argument, eligibility for cancellation, enemy of the people, Enlightenment, feckless faculty, fighting the good fight, getting canceled, going along to get along, good intentions, having a prayer, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind, heteronormative as accusation, human rights as self-evident, I have a dream, left mirroring right, left/right mirror images, liberal arts curriculum, living on your inheritance, losing by failing to fight, marginalized, nazi erasure of rights, objectively guilty, opposing oppressors, oppressed as social rank, oppression as status, oppression without status, oppressor/oppressed relation, parental authority, parental responsibilities, parents and children, political conformity, political intolerance, political shunning, politically downranked, politics as humorless, professor of philosophy, progressivism, qualifying as oppressed, racism as accusation, Reign of Terror, rights bearing citizenship, rights not self-perpetuating, rise of fascism, romance and political courage, saving Brooklyn College, school teachers’ authority, sexism as accusation, social murder, status on the left, story of victory, the Guillotine, transphobia as accusation, unrecognized oppression, William Butler Yeats, worst have passionate intensity, Yeats’ The Second Coming, you don’t lose them all, you don’t win them all
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Interesting Times
There is a well-known curse, supposedly Chinese, that goes: May you live in interesting times! In my childhood I lived in a New York City that snowed in winter. We schoolkids built snowmen and went sledding in the park. Life … 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 God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, 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, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, 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, 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
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Tagged academic bureaucracy, American philosopher, anti-semitism and loss of cultural self-respect, anti-semitism as replacement for personal defeat, anti-semitism in England, anti-semitism in higher education, anti-Zionism and Western cultural demoralization, anti-Zionism as loss of cultural self-defense, antigenocide turned on its head, Battle of Trafalgar, Bernard Harrison's Blaming the Jews, Big City childhood, British nineteenth-century cultural flourishing, building snowmen, Chautauqua movement, Chinese proverb, civilizational cycles, dark romanticism, demoralized generation, edifying educational retreat, English philosopher, going along to get along, Hebrew Bible as Jewish memory, Hitler’s anti-Judaism, Hitler’s genocide, Hitler’s racial classifications, ideal world vs real world, interesting times, Israel's 1948 Declaration of Independence, Israel’s will to survive, Jews as remembering their history, Jews not a race, Jews recording their history, Jews seen as a race, memory gap, moral balance, New York City childhood, overt vs implied anti-semitism, philosophic colleague, predictability of anti-semitism, safe and solid childhood, seeing what you expect, sledding in the park, suppressing chronological memory, the English defeat Napoleon, the makings of an anti-semite, too much of a good thing, transatlantic conversation, UN anti-zionism, uplifting vacation, wholesome group activities, wholesome uplift vs wicked world, William James, William James’ What Makes a Life Significant?, World War I demoralizes England, World War II and British cultural exhaustion
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Bless Me Also Father
In my grandfather’s Manhattan apartment overlooking Riverside Drive, the family would collect for the annual Passover celebration. Round the table were his sons and their wives, his younger daughter, my mother, along with my father, my sister and me. His … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, 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, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged academic bureaucracy, anti-semitism as sibling rivalry, asking the four questions, beginning of history, book of Genesis, Christian view of history, crucifixion redeems Original Sin, family gathering, favorite child, fight for the blessing, finger of God, first sibling rivalry, fratricide, Garden of Eden, God’s favorite, Grandfather’s blessing, history differently read by Christians and Jews, How Christians set the stage for history, How Jews set the stage for history, Jacob and Esau, Jewish view of history, Jewish vs Christian differences, Jewish vs Christian expulsion from Eden, Jewish vs Christian theology, Judaism vs Christianity Re Original Sin, looking like God, matzah, mock bargaining at Passover, native born Israeli, original sin, paintings of God, Passover celebration, performative predictions, Rav Tsair, recent anti-semitism, Sabra, sabra cousin, same Biblical stories differently read, sibling rivalry in the Bible, Sistine chapel, stealing the blessing, what Abel knew that Cain did not, why Cain killed Abel
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What Is Truth?
The question, famously put to Jesus by Pontius Pilate, was prompted by Jesus’ self-report that he had come to bear witness to the truth. Without capitalizing “Truth,” so that it acquires other-worldly sound-and-light effects – isn’t bearing witness to 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, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, acculturation and maturation, aesthetic theory, bearing witness, beyond good and evil, celebration of the novel, characters in novels, children’s adaptation to grownups, continental know-it-all, cultural history, culture and meaning, culture as influence on purpose, despair as affectation, destroying the culture, discerning life purpose, discerning one’s purpose, evil defined, evildoers and innocent purposes, evildoers attacking ordinary purpose, fashionable despair, feminine self-respect, fiction and nonfiction, good and evil, Guido Mazzoni’s Theory of the Novel, initial purposes, intellectual influence, Jesus, ladies don’t believe this creep, libertine Gnosticism, life as a journey, life as a pilgrimage, life as a quest, literary criticism, literary history, mapping and purpose, moral anomie, moral flatness, mutual influence in society, nineteenth-century novels, novelistic life stories, novels and real-life, Pontius Pilate, preferred purposes, pretense of amorality, revising purposes, seducer’s line, seducing the reader, self-definition, self-discovery, self-education, self-respect, stories true and false, story as putting purpose to the test, storylines, subjectivity mischaracterized, technique of seduction, testing purposes, the nature of evil, the novel, trials and errors, true stories, truth and falsehood, truth and postmodernism, truth vs fiction, undermining the culture, What is truth?, what you see is what you get
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My Time-Out Is Over
I’ve had two refuges at the present phase of my life. To both I’ve repaired for weekly shelter from the main lines of my work, its thinking and varied obligations. So what for me constitutes the Life Obligation from which … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, Biblical God, bigotry, books, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, non-violence, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, 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, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", active non-listening, answering for your life, anti-semite's hatred for God, betrayal after death, betrayal by family friend, betrayal of dead friend, Columbia University, complicity with attacks on Jews, concealed betrayal, decisive prayer, denying Jewish history, empathy with cruelty, evading moral choice, expulsion of the Jews, false childlike simplicity, feigned naivete, God as our witness, God as witness to life stories, God of history, God on the timeline, guiding vision, hazards of life, hidden betrayal, hiding from history, holistic malpractice, honor and dishonor, horse-whisperer, illuminating vision, immoral neutrality, innocent nature vs guilty history, invisible to God, Jewish passion for God, key moment in the story, life obligations, life refuge, life-defining experience, life-defining prayer, living a defensible life, living in interesting times, moral amnesia, moral shelter, morally invisible, nature as refuge from history, nature vs history, orienting prayer, philosopher friend, philosophical colleagues, philosophical friendship, posthumous betrayal, praying in the subway, pretended simplicity, reactions to the Israel-Gaza war, refuge from history, signs of anti-semitism, spiritual vision, the Jewish Calling, time-out from history, what is a Jew?, What sort of God?, when no one's looking, when the cat's away the mice will play
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Micro-Metaphysics
Related Content: What Do Women Want? | My Journey Within | What a Woman Needs is Philosophy | Call No Woman Happy | The Other Culture War | As Philosophy Goes …
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, 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, 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, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, 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, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Adam and Eve, Aristotle's Metaphysics, astrophysics, beyond physics, Big Answers, boundaries of ordinary life, boundaries of sensibility, cafe conversation, cause of causes, causes and freedom, conversational map, conversational tact, cosmogony, current feminist theories, deciphering women, decoding men, desire to know, desires forfeited, determinism and free will, ejsy ep, evil and women, facts and values, feminist abstractions, feminist politics, figuring out women and men, friends’ undiscussed topics, knowing what we need to know, life-terrain, logos of the cosmos, mapping the personal world, mapping women’s landscapes, men’s fears regrets hopes, meta ta physika, metaphysics of daily life, micro-metaphysics, mind and matter, new scientific frontier, personal landmarks, personal world, secret springs of action, secrets of daily life, sources of morality, tactful silence, The Big Bang, the big picture, the Little Picture, the real story, ultimate explanation, what women don't say, what women don’t disclose, women and men, women friends, women's conversational disclosures, women’s fears regrets hopes, women’s reunions, women’s undiscussed topics, World of Desire, zones of silence
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Anti-Semitism’s Secret Springs
Before October 7, 2023, the anti-Semite was a type I seldom encountered. I can remember the very first time the phenomenon came my way in an academic setting. A philosophic colleague of my late father was scheduled to give a … 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, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, 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, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, 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, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", academic freedom, academic philosophy, answer to prayer, anti-hero, anti-Semite defined, anti-Semites, chronology and guilt, chronology and moral judgment, Columbia University, concealed cunning, death ending a friendship, divine revelation, divine revelation in New York subway, divine separation and human visibility, divine separation and our narrative, family friends, friends become enemies, friendship betrayed, friendship lost, God can see through masks, God sees the story, guests for dinner, hating God's historical aspect, heroes and villains, hiding from God, human life as storylike, human visibility to God, inherited friends, institutional powerlessness, Jewish mission defined, Jewish passion for God, Jews and God in history, living behind a mask, masked protesters, misreading the Bible, misusing the Bible, moral courage, mysticism and moral evasion, naive facade as a mask, October 7, personal God vs God as Oneness, philosophic colleagues, philosophy of religion, pretended naivete, selective Biblical citations, the timeline and moral clarity, transcendent God vs immanent God, trial run for unacceptable behavior, what people will do in the dark, what you see is what you get, when the cat's away the mice will play
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