Category Archives: eighteenth century
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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Time Travel
Time Travel When I was a girl in New York City, my favorite thing to do was to go by myself to the Metropolitan Museum. In those days, the vast rooms were usually empty. Often I seemed to be the … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, beauty, Biblical God, books, childhood, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, medieval, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, nineteenth-century, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, relationships, religion, Renaissance, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, 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, victims, violence, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Alfred Lord Tennyson, alone with art, ancient Jerusalem, ancient stones, artistic beauty, “the well of time”, “thee’s and thou’s”, beauty in art, beheading of Mary Queen of Scots, buried layers, bygone feelings, bygone lives, City girl, death of friends, decoding the past, earlier worlds, Egyptian sarcophagi, Enlightenment, Formalism in art, Herodian temple, human incompleteness, irrecoverable past, longing for the past, loss of friends, lost worlds, martial glory, Mary Queen of Scots, meditation vision, Metropolitan Museum, mourning friends, museum visit, New York City, nostalgia, other worlds, otherness, poet laureate, pride and shame, rams’ horns, retrieving the past, Second Temple, self-knowledge, soldier’s duty, Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade”, The Archaeological Method, the past, The Pyramids, The Sphinx, Tudor England, Voltaire, Voltaire on the ancients
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The Feminine Honor
The Feminine Honor My recent “Me Too” experience now appears to be winding to its close with the moral fundamentals suitably restored. Since I’m a city kid, with street smarts, who had reason to believe that her life skills were … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, action, alienation, American politics, art of living, autonomy, Biblical God, bureaucracy, chivalry, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, 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, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, oppression, past and future, peace, poetry, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, 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, time, TV, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged a fight with your name on it, Alfred de Musset’s Les Caprices de Marianne, anti-slavery, chivalrous sentiments, chivalry, chivalry ridiculed, disrespect for women, Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, equal pay for equal work, feminine honor, feminist friends, first rodeo, getting thrown, ignoble conduct, le sort des femmes, manliness, Marie Antoinette the English and the French, Me Too, Me Too Movement, moral basis, moral combat, moral fundamentals, moral order, noble conduct, political combat, political war wounds, repairing the world, right to drive, right to vote, saving the environment, the destiny of women, the Free French, the Haganah, the Spanish Republic, Theatre national populaire, thwarted chivalry, TNP, unworthy conduct, women’s fate, world wide slavery
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