Email Abbie!
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"I would like to open this site for conversation with women of all ages, convictions and styles of life – wherever situated on the gamut of experience. In principle, there is no bar to men joining in, since how one defines women has a lot to do with what it means to be a man. But it is women I invite to pull up a chair at this virtual café table and put their questions and views into the conversation. I can be wrong as often as right, so specific advice will be avoided. What will be sought is light on how best to frame the situation of women, considered as a highly interesting problematic. What kind of hand have we been dealt, as women, and how can we best play it?
Comments are warmly encouraged on any post at any point."
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Tag Archives: determinism
The Baiter and the Baited
The Baiter and the Baited We are back from a week of my neuropathy treatments at the Loma Linda clinic in California. The main progress this time has been in locating more precisely the regions of the body – ahem, … Continue reading →
Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, bigotry, books, Chivalry, Christianity, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Courage, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Institutional Power, Jews, Judaism, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Male Power, Martyrdom, Masculinity, master, master/slave relation, Medieval, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, morality, Mortality, Oppression, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Political, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Race, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, secular, Seduction, self-deception, 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, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", accusation of bigotry, cause of neuropathy, derivative philosophy, determinism, epigenetics, established consensus, ethology, functionalism, genetic model, genetic theory, illness as a message, inflammation in the body, intelligence in nature, Jewish memory, Jews and Christians, l’esprit de l’escalier, Loma Linda clinic, masked insults, Materialism, neuropathy treatments, neurovascular system, oldest hatred, original philosophy, philosophic colleagues, physical self-understanding, pogrom, Princeton historian, reductionism, scale of nature, self-understanding, social baiting, social forces, social insults, social life as war, sonograms, symptomatic improvements, talk to our bodies, the body’s realism, the expressive body, the First Crusade, the Holocaust, the new anti-Semitism, the siddur, the talking body, walking handicap
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“Evil? What Do You Mean, ‘Evil’?”
“Evil? What Do You Mean, ‘Evil’”? Back when the first edition of A Good Look at Evil came out, I told a Maine neighbor that I had written a book about evil. He was a carpenter who had done a … Continue reading →
Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Childhood, Chivalry, Christianity, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Institutional Power, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Martyrdom, master/slave relation, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, novels, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, radicalism, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, scientism, secular, Seduction, self-deception, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged backhanded compliment, biological determinism, class privilege, common sense, concealed enmity, controlling, copping out, cruelty, cultural determinism, cultural relativism, defying public opinion, denial, determinism, dissent from consensus, dodging responsibility, Downeast, encounters with evil, environmental determinism, escapism, evil as objective, evil as subjective, experimental psychology, expertise, fact/value split, fearing the worst, finding excuses, following the crowd, free will, guilt trip, hard-heartedness, history of evil, hitting the mark, holier-than-thou, hoping for the best, illusion of free will, illusion of freedom, indoctrination, insensitive, interested party, involuntary reactions, judgementalism, judgments of fact, judgments of value, Maine neighbors, manipulation, meanness, missing the mark, money privilege, moral absolutism, moral common sense, moral danger, moral evasion, moral evidence, moral interest, moral intuition, moral manipulation, moral relativism, moral superiority, moralistic language, morality moralism, narrowness, non-conformism, non-judgmentalism, one of the herd, out of control, out of touch, outlier, over-privileged, people as herd animals, personal condemnations, personal insults, projection, rationalizations, relativism, rigid, self-interest, self-righteousness, skepticism, social privilege, subjective relativism, the loner, tongue-lashing, tyranny's recruits, unconscious motivations, unforgiving
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“Proof of Heaven?”
“Proof of Heaven?” Epicurus, ancient atomist and empiricist that he was, taught that we human beings are composed of large numbers of atoms, each one too tiny to see. So, he maintained, is everything else. When such collections of … Continue reading →
Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, Christianity, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Immortality, Institutional Power, Journalism, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, memory, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, Mysticism, novels, Ontology, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Poetry, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, promissory notes, Propaganda, public facade, Public Intellectual, radicalism, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, scientism, secular, self-deception, 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, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged academic presentations, ancient atomism, Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, ants, atomism, brain death, brain surgery, coma, comforts of religion, cultural paradigm, death, death as the end, death is not, determinism, dissolution, divine beauty, divine light, divine Love, E. coli bacteria, Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into the Afterlife, enjoying solitude, Epicurus, Esquire magazine, fear of death, Harvard Medical School, heart death, heavenly support, hyper-reality, identity theory, journalistic expose, journey to the after-life, kabbalist, medical credentials, medical warrant, medically inexplicable recovery, mind as brain, moral struggle, near death experience, neocortex, neuroscientists, Omaha Nebraska, paradigm change, physical anxiety, physical vulnerability, received opinion, scientific consensus, scientific fact, Scott Wade, Sioux City Iowa, solitude., stress fracture, surviving brain death, surviving heart death, total death, Ultrasound Surgery Foundation in Charlottesville VA, world of action
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Anger
Anger At one of the numberless administrative hearings held during my seven-year job fight, the opposing counsel asked me, with an insinuating sidewise smile, “Are you very angry at the people who fired you?” I glanced down the long table … Continue reading →
Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, bureaucracy, Chivalry, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, 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, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Martyrdom, Masculinity, master, master/slave relation, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, non-violence, novels, Ontology, Oppression, pacifism, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Political, Political Movements, politics, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, 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, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged 17th century metaphysics, 17th century philosophy, a woman's anger, academic colleagues, academic hearings, academic politics, academic reinstatement, academic sexism, academic tenure, administrative hearings, anger, anger as truthful, anger management, Arbitration, bad guys, combat of life, dealing with anger, deliberate injury, determinism, drama of life, free will, freedom, Gandhi and non-violence, God as Substance, God as Witness, God is a Person, God's love, hard to be a person, healthy anger, impersonal God, interpersonal dynamics, interpersonal skills, job fight, laws of history, laws of nature, Mahatma, martial arts of social life, merited anger, metaphysical system, overcoming anger, personal choice, personal God, persons as objects, professional hell, promise breaking, real life dramas, reclaiming your power, resentment, revenge-seekers, Right and Wrong, risks of life, satyagraha, self-definition, sexism, sidestepping anger, soul force, Spinoza, Spinoza's Ethics, Spinozistic remedy, substance attributes and modes, tenure fight, Ultimate Action, Ultimate Causality, understanding as power, Unqualified Power, Western films
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Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist It’s a German word for the “spirit of the times.” The historian Norman Stone gives an example of a moment when the Zeitgeist changed: “Dangerfield had it right when he observed how, in the cartoons of Punch, there was … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute freedom and terror, Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, bureaucracy, Childhood, Chivalry, Cities, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, 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, Immorality, Institutional Power, Journalism, Law, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Martyrdom, Masculinity, master, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, nineteenth-century, Oppression, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Poetry, Political, Political Movements, politics, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Race, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, scientism, 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, Theology, Time, TV, twentieth century, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged 1912, 1914, American philosopher, Anatomy as destiny, anthropologists, Art curators, Art forgery, Believing a lie, Cartoons in Punch, Children and truth, class warfare, contradictions, cultural relativism, Deceiving children, Detecting forged antiquities, Detecting lies, Detecting truth, determinism, dialectic, domination, Drunken father, Economic determinism, Epistemology, Etruscan Warrior, free will, Gender and choice, Hardwired traits, Having options, In step with the times, Inconsistencies, Institutional violence, Irrationalism, Jane Robert's The After Death Journal of an American Philosopher: the World View of William James, Living fashionably, Logic, Logos, Masks of power, Metropolitan Museum, Nietzsche, Norman Stone’s Europe Transformed: 1878-1919, Oppression, Oppressors and oppressed, Other-directed, Outliving one’s time, Posthumous recognition, Presentism, relativism, Righteous anger, search for truth, Signs of the times, social isolation, social retreat, Socratic method, Solitary mountain retreat, Spirit of the times, subjective relativism, the World, Truth and lies, Uninhabited island, universal truth, Victorian world, Well-meaning cops, William James, Zeitgeist
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“Believe You Me”
“Believe You Me” In “Treachery and Transcendence,” last week’s column, I wrote about the disappointing “new treatment” for my walking handicap. Despite all, I decided to continue it for another week or two, just to see if it could be … Continue reading →
Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bureaucracy, Chivalry, Christianity, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Immortality, Institutional Power, Jews, Judaism, Law, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Masculinity, master, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Political, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, scientism, 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, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged a patient's trust, action, Ambiguity, antecedent conditions, Arc of the Covenant, Ark of the Covenant, bad check, belief, broken promise, bystanders, chosen people, commitment, credance, credibility, demoralization, demoralizing experience, desert wandering, determinism, Divine mission, Egyptian bondage, Emmanuel Levinas, enabling, experimental treatment, fate of Korah, freedom, holiness, human worth, iatrogenic, interpersonal relationships, Israelites, Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness, Korah's rebellion, land of milk and honey, Levite rebellion, Levites, lying, manna, midrash, misplaced help, moral dispute, Moral evaluation, moral responsibility, Moses, Moses' humility, Moses' leadership, Mount Sinai, nocebo effect, nullified promise, Numbers 16, parting of Red Sea, passover night, philosophers, placebo effect, plausibility, playing devil's advocate, prayer guidance, promise, promissory note, psychology, rebel faction, repairing the breach, repairing the world, Sartre's "the serious man", spiritual competition, spiritual envy, spiritual mediator, spiritual rank, spiritual track record, temptation, the Other, the ten plagues, Torah Study, transcendence, treachery, trust, truth, univocality, walking handicap, words
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Real Life and the Philosophic Life
Real Life and the Philosophic Life Is there any connection between the two? The book I recently fell in love with, John Kaag’s American Philosophy: A Love Story, was heartening to me on two fronts. First, the American philosophers, whose … Continue reading →
Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Courage, Courtship, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Faith, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, Heroes, hidden God, History, history of ideas, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Immortality, Law, Legal Responsibility, Literature, Love, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, nineteenth-century, Past and Future, Philosophy, Poetry, Political Movements, politics of ideas, presence, promissory notes, Psychology, Public Intellectual, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, scientism, social construction, Social Conventions, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, Suffering, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Time, twenty-first century, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged "the divine Plato", 19th century, 19th century optimism, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", American optimism, American Philosophy, archives, Athenian street, Athens, Australian materialism, autobiography, Baruch Spinoza, business mentality, Cephalus, Charles Darwin, conventionality, counter-culture, Darwin, Darwinian Laws of Nature, David Stove, David Stove's "Against the Idols of the Tribe", despair, determinism, dialogue, Divine intervention, Evolutionary theory, faith in progress, fate, fictional narrative, go along to get along, God as Witness, God's action, God's role, honesty, John Kaag, John Kaag's "American Philosophy: A Love Story", justice defined, limits of honesty, love life, luck, made up stories, memoir, native grain, New World, overcoming despair, personal pathway, philosophy's tools, Plato, political justice, Pragmatists, promise keeping, providence, pursuit of truth, road less traveled, role of chance, romantic risks, satire, Socrates, Socratic dialectic, Socratic method, Spinoza's Ethics, the God factor, The Name, Tom Wolfe, Tom Wolfe's "The Kingdom of Speech", true love, true stories, truth seeker, truth telling, unconventionality, what rings true, William James, William James' "The Will To Believe"
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"Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column" 