Category Archives: Phenomenology of the Mind
Feminism without Contradictions
In “Thought Faces the Future,” my column of October 1, only one short paragraph was devoted to philosophic feminism. All I said was that, by continuing to define womanhood as completely “socially constructed,” current feminist theory has left real-life women … 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, 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, 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, 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
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Tagged "Feminism Without Contradictions", "Philosophic Foundations of Feminism", 18th-century feminists, 19th-century feminists, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Feminism Without Contradictions", adultery, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, contradiction- what?, contradictions of feminism, defending victimized women, defining contradiction, divorce for adultery, fellowship of the oppressed, Feminism, feminism and medical reforms, feminism and privacy, feminism and victimhood, feminism and women in prisons, feminism and women's sports, feminism’s contradictions, feminism’s future, feminist fashion statement, feminist Founding Mother, feminist husband, feminist ideology, feminist stories, feminist theory, feminists who insult women, gender identity, how to be a woman, husbands who betray, looking for Mr. Right, marriage and feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft, men as not the enemy, mother-daughter love, mother’s love, New York’s “Top of the Sixes”, oppressed as oppressor, overcoming bourgeois morality, perils of women, post-feminism, post-feminist stories, predicaments of women, private lives of feminists, professional betrayal, psychiatric malpractice, reassessing feminism, romantic poets and feminism, safety pin skirt, second wave feminists, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, sisterhood is powerful, supportive husband, The End of Woman by Carrie Gress, the problematic of woman, the situation of women, transitioning genders, womanhood as socially constructed, women controlling women, women friends, women in novels, women’s conversations, women’s faith, women’s faith in love, women’s fears, women’s hopes, women’s lives as a problematic, women’s memoirs, women’s private conversations, women’s social vulnerability
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October 7 Reflections
As of tonight, tomorrow will be October 7. Many who will write about the events of that day are more versed than I am in the phenomenology of Jew-hatred. Some are in the thick of the current efforts by my … 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, 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, 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
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Tagged academic anti-semitism, anti-semitism, antisemitism and personal frustration, antisemitism and sibling rivalry, antisemitism as frustration over one’s life story, becoming an antisemite, beliefs about afterlife, Cain and Abel, cheering October 7, cruelty of Hamas, decoding anti-Jewish hatred, defending civilization, end of history, escaping history, facing Jewish responsibilities, facing one’s personal obstacles, failing to live one’s own story, fashionable bigotry, fashions in bigotry, fashions in victimhood, fighting anti-semitism, God of history, Holocaust in a past life, identifying with Hamas, Jewish memory, Jews as preserving the God of history, Jews as preserving the timeline, Jews representing historical continuity, life after death, life as a true story, life on the timeline, October 7, past life in Nazi Germany, past life in the 1930’s, past-life memory, pseudo-science, puzzle of anti-semitism, reincarnation, spoiling other people’s stories, supersessionism, the Jewish narrative, vision of global anti-semitism, Western Civilization
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Thought Faces the Future
One of the reasons that, back in my professorial days, I thought studying philosophy was beneficial was that a culture’s preferences and beliefs could be tracked to its underlying assumptions. A culture rests on what it thinks is true and … 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, 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, 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, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romantic love, 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, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged A.J. Ayer’s after-death experience, acupuncture’s holistic view, American Philosophical Association, APA’s Proceedings and Addresses, bad money drives out good, benefits of philosophy, brute power vs functional power, cancel-culture, cultural cowardice, cultural mediocrity, culture of intimidation, current cultural theme, current intellectual theme, dismissing Ayer’s after-death experience, explaining away new data, fashions in oppression, feminism’s real-world failings, feminism’s unanticipated side-effects, foundational views in culture, Gramsci’s hegemonic powers, how philosophy can help life, humanities vulnerable to intimidation, intellectual dead end, Jean-Paul Sartre, mapping knowledge, mapping what we do and don’t know, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, mechanism vs holism, mending fractures and the mechanistic view, NY Times Book Review, oppressor vs oppressed, philosophy and cultural diagnostic, philosophy and the zeitgeist, philosophy at the frontier of thought, philosophy immune to intimidation, philosophy unscathed by culture of intimidation, philosophy’s frontier problems, philosophy’s key to effective living, philosophy’s real task, postmodernism and power-relations, postmodernism and the play of interpretations, postmodernism vs objectivity, premonitions and time-bound human experience, reconceiving feminist theory, Sartre and defining one’s self, Sartre and irreducible freedom, Sartre and personal freedom, Sartre as cultural trendsetter, Sartre’s key insight, Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex, the invisible oppressed, The New York Review of Books
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Neither Athens nor Jerusalem
In 1867 Matthew Arnold wrote a book titled Culture and Anarchy in which he held up two saving springs of our civilization: Athens – from which we get the inner urge to “see things as they really are” – and … 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, 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, 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
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Tagged a legacy of teaching, academic breakdown and civilization, an unreal city in the future, Athens and Jerusalem, Brooklyn College, college students, decoding real life, desecrating the sacred, enabling rioting students, enlightenment ideals, functional power vs brute power, groves of academe, joining the gang, Leo Bronstein, Leo Strauss, libertine Gnosticism, losing the academy, Matthew Arnold, Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy, mob action, mobs on campus, philosophic assumptions, philosophic foundations of behavior, philosophy and personal decisions, philosophy and real life decisions, philosophy and the human experience, philosophy as guide for living, philosophy as shaping culture, philosophy as shaping culture throughout history, philosophy shaping the soul, philosophy’s civilizing mission, playing the victim, profaning the academy, profaning the altars, pulling down Athens and Jerusalem, social conformism, Socratic dialogue, Stanley Rosen, student teacher appreciation, students who don’t study, teachers who don’t teach, teaching art history, teaching as soul-shaping, teaching civilization’s power and presence, teaching philosophy, teaching philosophy as a transmission of a civilizational power and presence, teaching vs indoctrinating, The Academy, the House that Plato Built, the importance of philosophy in history and civilization, the Jewish essence, the unexamined life is not worth living, threatening Jewish students, Western Civilization, Western Civilization’s sources, winning hearts and minds, you are what you think
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History’s Spiritual Side
Over the past few days, Jerry and I have been attending and speaking at the Eric Voegelin Society meetings in Philadelphia. Though the EVS is nested academically within the American Political Science Association, it’s a political science organization with 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, Biblical God, bigotry, 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, 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, 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, power games, 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 Abigail L. Rosenthal's The Evil of This Time, academic credibility, academic fair-mindedness, academic honesty, academics and Hitler, academics who are sincere, American Political Science Association, American political virtues, Austrian anti-semitism, Austrian Catholic illiberalism, authoritarian Catholic illiberalism, Bruno Godefroy, collapse of the norms, defeats explained away, delusional systems, Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, distinguished war criminals, endorsing war crimes, Enlightenment, Eric Voegelin, Eric Voegelin and authoritarian regime, Eric Voegelin Society, EVS in Philadelphia, extremist ideologies, French Revolution, Gnosticism vs Reality, Gnosticism's seductive appeal, Gnostics can't fail, guillotine victims, Hamas pride in atrocities, Harvard collective letter re Oct 7, incorrigible delusions, intellectual courage, intellectual scandal, justifying atrocities of Oct 7, love of truth, masks of detachment, metaxy between Gnosticism and Nihilism, Nazi Austria, Nazi takeover of Austria, Nazism and communism, nice people rejecting the norms, Oct 7 2023, open minded research, political escapism, political science, professors and Hitler, rationality without rationalizing, reality as hard to understand, Religion and Public Life in Harvard Divinity School, safe from refutation, secret knowledge, spirituality in politics, spirituality mishandled, Sydney Carton's last thoughts, the God hypothesis, the suspended middle between Gnosticism and Nihilism, transhuman purity, truth as religion enough, understanding reality, unrepentant atrocity perpetrators, Voegelin and American political virtues, Voegelin and anti-semitism, Voegelin and the metaxy, World War II refugee
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Is the Just Woman Happier?
Is the Just Woman Happier? Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, 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, 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, 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
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Tagged a life worth living, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", Abigail L. Rosenthal's "God and the Care for One's Story", academic combat, academic due process, academic reinstatement, accurate empathy, Aristotle's Metaphysics, asking God for help, broken relationships, carcinoginic social circumstance, classroom discipline, collegial friend, collegial normality, consequential choice, consequential vote, covert aggressor, denying the Rashomon Effect, dimming one's moral lights, disloyalty in friendship, empathy, empathy experiment, empathy with enemies, everyday heroism, evil and personal control, evil sees its opportunity, existential questions, faculty union, false compassion, false friends, fight to the finish, forced option, fork in life's road, friend's betrayal, friends who believe defamation, God's silence, good friends in hard times, gossip as a weapon, human desire to know, inner life of former friends, inner life of friends, irreparable breakup, Is the Just man happier? Is the Just woman happier?, job fight, knowing other minds, knowing other minds as parent, knowing other minds as teacher, knowing the mind of another, liberal guilt, life and death struggle, lost friendships, mind body connection, misperceiving the true colors, moral choice, moral cowardice, moral integrity, moral manipulation, moving on to survive, obligation to survive, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Philosophy Department, physical and mental health, Plato's Republic, playing the victim, politics of experience, power of the weak, prayer and meditation, praying for help, pretended misunderstanding, psyching out one's enemies, repaired social wounds, resisting a controller, resisting a manipulator, resisting an aggressor, resisting betrayal, resisting defamation, risking one’s job, seeing the true colors, social cowardice, social dominance, social survival, solitary struggle, solitude as moral struggle's precondition, standing by a friend, staying in the fight, survival instinct, testing situations, the other minds problem, the Rashomon excuse, the right way vs the easy way, the road less traveled, thought experiment, thought-waves of the mind, unhealthy circumstances, unrepaired wounds, veiled perception, victimhood misused, voting one's conscience, words as a weapon
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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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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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