Tag Archives: search for truth
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 Mind, Philosophy, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, 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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Are We Seeing a Culture Shift?
Are We Seeing a Culture Shift? Dates vary, when people try to characterize a phase of culture, but for (let us say) the past 50 years, opinion-shapers in our culture have functioned under the aegis of the following influences: post-structuralism, … Continue reading
Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, bad faith, beauty, book reviews, books, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, Hegel, hegemony, Heroes, hierarchy, history of ideas, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Immorality, Institutional Power, Jews, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Mind Control, Modern Women, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, morality, nineteenth-century, novels, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Philosophy, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, radicalism, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Roles, secular, 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, Theology, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Adam Kirsch, aesthetic intentions, Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, anything goes, artist's intentions, blacklisting, Cathleen Schine, conscious intentions, contradictory doctrines, creative intention, cultural framework, culture shift, Cynthia Ozick's Antiquities, debate at Davos, deconstruction, denouncing the denouncers, dominant group, Ernst Cassirer’s The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, falsifiable claims, group agendas, group domination, hegemony, idealist v materialist, impartial justice, intentions as irrelevant, intentions no excuse, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, John Gray, Jonathan Rée's Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English, Marxism, objective reality, objective truth, opinion shaper, paradigm shift, philosophy in culture, philosophy's impact, Plato v Epicurus, post-modernism, post-structuralism, reality check, recognition of truth, relativism, rules of the road, search for truth, self-understanding, Steve G. Lofts, taking life seriously, the beautiful people, The New York Review of Books, universal values, writer's aim
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Proceedings and Addresses
Proceedings and Addresses Proceedings is the shared forum, like the Athenian agora, where American philosophers who have managed to command the attention of their colleagues publish their invited addresses. Since 2000, I’ve stepped down from active faculty status (though not … Continue reading
Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, bad faith, beauty, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, Chivalry, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Female Power, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Guilt and Innocence, hegemony, Heroes, hierarchy, history of ideas, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Institutional Power, life and death struggle, Love, Male Power, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Modern Women, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, morality, Mortality, non-violence, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Philosophy, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, science, scientism, Seduction, self-deception, seventeeth century, Sex Appeal, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, status, status of women, Suffering, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 17th century thought, Abigail's Adages, academic gossip, academic infighting, academic papers, academic politics, academic wives, agora, American philosophers, American Philosophy, APA, APA’s Memorial Minutes, APA’s Presidential Address, Athenian agora, Authenticity, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn College Philosophy Department, confirmation bias, Contemporary philosophy, cut throat business, discrediting reason, dog eat dog, epistemolgy, faculty status, finding oneself, giving a paper, good advice, high-power husband, human trustworthiness, impartial criteria, intellectual competition, intimate ties, invited addresses, Julia Driver, mathematical physics, misology, modern philosophy, moral criteria, moral prioritization, New York diner, one thought too many, pecking order, Penelope Maddy, personal v universal, philosophic argument, physicalism, primary and secondary qualities, Proceedings and Addresses, science and human values, search for truth, self-realization, sense of belonging, sense of decency, shared reasoning, snubbing, social forces, social prudence, The American Philosophical Association, The Enlightenment, the football field, the human zoo, the latest stuff, the longest conversation, the measurement of nature, theory of knowledge, universal criteria, universal ties, wives and widows, women philosophers
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Eminence?
Eminence? Nowadays I have been listening to the audio version of A Good Look at Evil (forthcoming on Amazon, early 2021). Jane Cullen, who was my editor at Temple University Press when this book first came out, has a young … Continue reading
Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, Anthropology, Art of Living, Autonomy, books, Childhood, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Guilt and Innocence, Hegel, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, 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, morality, novels, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Philosophy, Poetry, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, scientism, 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, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, Abigail L. Rosenthal’s Confessions of a Young Philosopher, abstract claims, acquiring a life story, audio version, audiobook, audiobook listeners, audiobook narrator, Augustine’s Confessions, book editor, career moves, changing one’s paradigm, chess game of life, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, cultural identity, defending turf, drama, Eminence, empathy, enacting a book, enacting philosophy, fame and fortune, fame as career, Guggenheim Museum, hyper-feminine, Jane Cullen, life of ideas, life-shaping beliefs, life-shaping ideas, lived dramas, Matthew Cohn, meeting objections, Metropolitan Museum, personal brand, personal identity, philosophic argument, philosophic career, philosophic claims, philosophic critic, plotline, professional commendation, reading aloud, search for truth, self-correction, self-criticism, speaking for effect, speaking sincerely, St. Augustine, Stockholm syndrome, Success, suspenseful plot, Temple University Press, thinking time, time for thought, world of ideas
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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 Mind, Philosophy, Poetry, politics of ideas, post modernism, 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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How A Woman Can Be Liberated
How A Woman Can Be Liberated When I started this column a few years ago, I vowed not to give advice. I even put that in our subtitle: “The Non-Advice Column.” So why am I about to give some? Well, … Continue reading
Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Autonomy, beauty, books, Childhood, Chivalry, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Female Power, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Institutional Power, Journalism, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Masculinity, master, master/slave relation, Memoir, memory, Messianic Age, Mind Control, Modern Women, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, morality, motherhood, novels, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Philosophy, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, radicalism, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, 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, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged a child’s body, a woman’s appeal, adolescence, Advice, American boys, American courtship, anatomy isn’t destiny, biological clock, biological imperative, boys and girls, child’s flexibility, de Beauvoir and Sartre, debts to feminism, European courtship, existentialist feminism, experience as evidence, extreme skepticism, false consciousness, Feminism’s preconditions, Frederich Nietzsche, Freud and women, Freudian theories, gender boundaries, getting dates, girlhood to womanhood, giving advice, growing up, growing up and liking it, ideas and culture, identity as a choice, identity theory, intellectual curiosity, Jean-Paul Sartre’s freedom, Jean-Paul Sartre’s fundamental project, Karl Marx, living a lie, losing inhibitions, male agendas, male-authored theories, moral motivation, natural laws, on the shelf, opinion shapers, personal consciousness and power structure, philosophical feminism, philosophy and courtship, philosophy and eros, playmates, pleasing men, puberty, search for truth, seduction’s consequences, self as an illusion, self-invention, sexual identity claims, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, testing ideas, the for-itself, trendy thinking, truth and objectivity, truth claims, unfairness to women, women giving up, women’s narratives
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