Month: November 2012

• November 6, 2012

  On abstention from voting

  What reasons might one have for not voting? Ineligibility: it could be that someone would like to vote but, for whatever reason, does not qualify as a voter. Physical incapacity: someone may want to vote but be unable to get to a voting booth or fill out his ballot, etc. Mental incapacity: one may be…
• November 5, 2012

  Recitation as dishonesty, improv as honesty

  My initial response to both talks was that both spoke in smooth tongues. Their words flowed freely and were put together grammatically. Their styles were pleasing to the ear even if their voices–hers especially: Nussbaum’s–were tinny. For a few minutes, I listened to his lecture on Neoplatonism and to hers–Nussbaum’s–on Not for Profit. Her impromptu opening…
• November 2, 2012

  A brief review of the cognitive theory of emotions

  From time to time, I return to Martha Nussbaum’s understanding of our emotional life as it is elaborated in her books The Therapy of Desire and Upheavals of Thought. I have had reason to do so again recently. Diana Fritz Cates (see her book review: “Conceiving Emotions: Martha Nussbaum’s Upheavals of Thought,” The Journal of Religious Ethics 31.2 (Summer, 2003),…
• November 1, 2012

  How many ways have we learned not to awaken? Reflections on the use of metaphors for Superstorm Sandy

  A storm is no neutral thing. Can we count the metaphors? Before the later-named Superstorm Sandy struck the eastern seaboard, journalists reported of citizens bracing. As it churned and grinded, cities like New York were summarily bashed, battered, pummeled, punched (as in packing a…), pounded (e.g., into submission). In the aftermath, the city, though burdened, is recovering, with businesses back and running and commuters returning…