Month: May 2011
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Tomorrow is Doomsday: Remember to bring your passport
When the world is not in order, when it’s too vast, too complex, too unmanageable, and when it’s all these things for far too long, then people pack their bags and go on holiday. Where to? To paradise, of course, but not before passing through customs–which is to say, Judgment Day. As it happens, tomorrow,…
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On having your life in order and on not having your life in order
I’ve begun sorting people according to 3 categories. (Get ready to cringe.) The first are those who have their lives in order.* With a handful of these people, I’ve become friends. I respect them, and I seek to emulate them. They are beautiful people. The second are those who don’t have their lives in order…
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On graceful exits
The virtue of leaving gracefully: of knowing when it’s time and of saying your adieus. The same is true of death.
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James Ladyman on philosophy that’s not for the masses
In “Philosophy That’s Not for the Masses,” James Ladyman argues that professional philosophers are under no obligation to make their ideas accessible to the public. Philosophers of science and logic, he writes, may get on quite well writing for and speaking with each other, they really should specialize in order to make the questions they…
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On Ulysses’s homecoming: Crying and shivering
And after his return to Ithaca, what there does Ulysses find? That his home is filled with suitors, truculent and obnoxious. And after they’ve been dispatched and the floors cleaned? That there abides a reticent wife, filled with distrust. They shall sleep in separate beds in separate rooms that night. This until, filled with anger,…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 