Tag Archives: Spinoza’s Ethics
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, postmodernism, 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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Political Innocence
Political Innocence If each of us were sure we were right, we would never quarrel with anyone – much less break with friends – over politics. The politically-triggered quarrels, friendship breakages, civil-society breakdowns, result from our insecurity over what we … Continue reading →
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bureaucracy, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, 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, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, master, medieval, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mortality, nineteenth-century, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, self-deception, sex appeal, 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, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged ad hominen fallacy, aim of marriage, Alasdair Macintyre's Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, alienation, arguing to win, argument train, assembly line production, banked labor, better argument, broken friendship, capital, Capitalism, civil society, civil society breakdown, civility breakdown, communitarians, economic solutions, economic theory, elusive Beloved, emotional security, erotic life, fallability, fragmentary evidence, hidden Beloved, hypothetical explanation, hypothetical views, imperfect world, Industrial Revolution, informal fallacies, inherited consensus, inherited norms, insecurity, intellectual insecurity, Jane Roberts' The Afterdeath Journal of An American Philosopher: The World View of William James, liberty of mind, Marxian theory, mass production, modern philosophy, Modernity, moral insecurity, originality surpressed, originality v groupthink, persecution of Jews, philosophical argument, philosophical discussion, political solutions, power as the only truth, quarrels, Reform temple, repairing the world, social power, Song of Songs, space of friendship, Spinoza's Ethics, theory of surplus value, thought experiment, traditional values, trained philosophers, truth, truth-seeking, tyranny of gossip, unintended consequences, witch burning
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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, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, 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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