Category Archives: eighteenth century
Confessions
Confessions Last night I was trying to cope with a digestive disaster and wondering what on earth could have caused it, since it didn’t seem to have the usual obvious connection with food. Two explanations presented themselves. First, a possible … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, Biblical God, bigotry, books, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, Idealism-, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, law, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, relationships, religion, roles, romantic love, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Abigail L Rosenthal’s Confessions of a Young Philosopher, ancient gnosticism, Australian Materialist, changing paradigms, closing off life's promise, complications of race, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, contending worldviews, disrupting cultural norms, double plotlines, empirical and conceptual plotlines, Eric Voegelin. philosophy of history, escapism, escapism in real history, fashionable attitudes, finding one’s footing, flawless world, gnostic belief systems, gnostic calamities, gnostic cults, gnostic hidden world, gnostic mass movements, Hans Jonas’s The Gnostic Religion, intellectual resources, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, Jews’ precarious position, libertine Gnosticism, life lessons, life paradigm, life problems without remedy, literary talent, living one's promise, man/woman seduction, masculine precincts, personal search for truth, philosophic motivations, philosophy as masculine, portrait of a culture, portrait of one’s era, psycho-somatic illness, quick fixes, Richard Landes’s Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience, search for truth, secret knowledge, self-portrait, situations without exit, St Augustine’s Confessions, the philosophic life, the promise of a life, the truth of one’s time, thought-worlds, utopian political views, when God doesn’t answer, women philosophers, women pioneers, world of ideas, worldviews
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Forgiveness Revisited
Forgiveness Revisited Lately I’ve come to a new attitude toward forgiveness and, for me, it’s a really great change. You might say, it’s a move closer to the Christian view, but that would be misleading. The change was prompted by … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, Biblical God, childhood, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, Idealism-, ideality, identity, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, non-violence, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Anne Frank, anti-semitism, anti-semitism in denial, cafe conversation, cheap grace, Christian forgiveness, circling evil, civilian Nazi collaborator, civilian Nazi informer, conditions for forgiveness, dangers of forgiveness, defaming others, defeating evil, Dietrich Bonhoffeur, divine power, dream narrative, dream visit, enabling, enabling an aggressor, evil's contagion, forgiveness, forgiving injuries to others, genteel anti-semitism, geography of experience, get out of jail free, hasidic saints, hasidic tradition, insulting Jews, Jesus and forgiveness, Jewish atonement, Jewish identity, Jewish saints, Jewish self-defense, Jews in hiding, letting go, life experience, life wounds, lightening the load, love of God, making amends, Martin Buber, Martin Buber's "Tales of the Hasidim: The Early Masters", moral burdens, moral landscape, moral martial arts, overheard at a cafe, power of forgiveness, rabbinic view of forgiveness, repairing social injury, restaurant scene, self-righteousness, significant dream, social combat, social protocol, soul visitation, spiritual transformation, superficial sophisticates, the art of war, the family of Anne Frank, theological anti-semitism, transforming evil, turning the other cheek, zaddik
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Who Can You Believe?
Who Can You Believe? Since I don’t ask questions like the one above just to answer them with an urbane shoulder shrug, I’ll be glad to tell you. About a week ago, I received a call from someone I really … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, books, childhood, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immortality, institutional power, law, legal responsibility, literature, love, masculinity, master, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, motherhood, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, roles, secular, seduction, self-deception, 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, time, twenty-first century, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Abigail’s crisis, absurdity manufactured, animal friendships, Arabian horses, Authenticity, bad faith, Bentham embalmed, crisis of meaning, crisis of success, energy recognition, energy signature, four-footed friends, higher pleasures, horse competency, horse owners, horse sense, horseback riding, Houyhnhnms, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Laurel Nobilis Arabians LLC, Mill’s mental crisis, Moral crisis, mummification, philosophic crisis, post-achievement depression, post-success let down, the arrival fallacy, the credibility of lies, the greatest happiness principle, therapeutic riding, trust, trustworthiness, truthfulness, unpredictable patterns, unpretentiousness, utilitarianism, you can’t go home again
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The Fallacy of Misplaced Vagueness
The Fallacy of Misplaced Vagueness The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead spotlighted a previously unrecognized mistake in reasoning: “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.” It happens when we confuse an abstract concept for something concrete. Medieval knights set out in quest of … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, alienation, autonomy, books, chivalry, Christianity, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cultural politics, culture, dialectic, eighteenth century, eternity, faith, fashion, hegemony, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, law, literature, love, medieval, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mysticism, ontology, past and future, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, science, scientism, secular, seventeenth century, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged abstract concept, Alfred N. Whitehead, atomic facts, confusing abstract for concrete, economics and human wickedness, Einstein and quantum theory, Einstein’s laws of nature, Einstein’s space/time, ensemble of probabilities, fallacies, fallacy of misplaced concreteness, history of money, holiness, holiness as a practice, Holy Grail, Isaac Newtown, John Locke, laws of nature, Locke’s view of money, measuring a wave, Medieval knights, medium of exchange, mind of God, modern finance, money, Newtown and money, physics, picturing the world, quantum entanglement, quantum entanglement and observer, Thomas Levenson’s Money for Nothing, value of money, wave collapse, wave into particle
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How Hegel Helps
How Hegel Helps A British analytic philosopher friend read my “Obit” column of last week and noticed that I’d spent some of my professional time with G. W. F. Hegel, the nineteenth-century German philosopher. He emailed to ask what on … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, books, bureaucracy, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, life and death struggle, literature, male power, masculinity, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, modernism, moral evaluation, moral psychology, nineteenth-century, novels, oppression, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, relationships, religion, roles, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 19th-century German philosophy, a man’s world, advice for women, American universities, Ariadne’s thread, before and after WWI, boundaries on desire, British Analytic Philosophy, cultural era, cultural fad, cultural platforms, cultural studies, culturally relative truth, culture as way of thinking, defining an era, defining culture, empathy, fashionable feminism, female passivity, flappers, girls in the 1920s, Henry James, ideology v experience, intellectual fashions, intellectual groupie, key motivation, life as evidence, literary studies, lived experience, men and feminism, opinion-shapers, Parisian deconstructionist, Parisian intellectuals, Parisian post-moderns, philosophy in the Anglosphere, philosophy of history, Presentism, professional philosophy, queer studies, search for truth, the Absolute in culture, the downfall of a culture, the end of an era, the humanities, The Jazz Age, the right questions, thought-forms, WB Yeats’ The Second Coming, why cultures fall, women’s liberation, women’s studies, World War I
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