Month: October 2013

• October 29, 2013

  The relevance of temperance for social entrepreneurs

  In Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that we cultivate the moral virtues by means of habituation and proper training. The right kind of education in courage will put us face-to-face with fear so that we can ‘learn to despise things that are terrible and to stand our ground against them.’ Later on in…
• October 28, 2013

  Tom Stoppard vs. Richard Rorty

  I read a quote from the playwright Tom Stoppard about his view of playwriting. ‘My whole life,’ he tells his interviewer, ‘is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers.’ This view of things, albeit clever-sounding, is backward. Some years ago, I read something very different in in one of Raymond Geuss’s books.…
• October 26, 2013

  ‘The morning tree wavers, but the mind does not…’

  A poetic chant that came to me before a philosophical conversation earlier today. * 1 The morning tree wavers, but the mind does not. The mind, unwavering, is full of stillness. 2 When one thing comes to it, the mind takes the thing in hand. That and that thing only. When another thing comes to…
• October 22, 2013

  Sweetness and gravity

  ’15. From MAXIMUS, self-mastery and stability of purpose; and cheeriness in sickness as well as in all other circumstances; and a character justly proportioned of sweetness and gravity; and to perform without grumbling the task that lies to one’s hand.’ –Marcus, Meditations, Book I
• October 21, 2013

  The phenomenology of caffeine

  I have been incrementally decreasing the amount of black tea and coffee I drink in order to observe the effects of caffeine on the quality of my attention. I no longer drink English breakfast tea at noon or in the afternoon, and I have less than two cups of coffee in the morning. Soon, I…