Author: Andrew Taggart
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Defining insistence
A first go at a definition of insistence: Insistence is the firmly held conviction that the relevant agents would be best off were they to act based on (i) the belief that P is the right (or best) way to do things or (ii) the belief that Q is the right (best, most accurate, most coherent, etc.) view…
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‘No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers’ (Merton)
Thomas Merton summarizes the teachings of Zhuang Zhou (Chuang Tzu) so beautifully: ‘No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers.’ This is from The Way of Chuang Tzu. How wrong: wrong in a moral sense? Perhaps. But primarily wrong in an epistemic sense as in incorrect or mistaken, in error. Whence: ‘No one is…
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Eastern vs. Western views of hope during our unsettled time: A conflict and resolution
One major conflict between Eastern and Western philosophy is over whether one has any warrant to hope. The Eastern line adheres to the thought: being present with what is present just is freedom, is realization. One attains to ultimate tranquility just when one intuits this, after which time one is fully with what is. Because one is…
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Cultural devastation vs. cultural collapse: First thoughts on Radical Hope
Suppose we were to think about a people’s way of life’s going out of existence. What sort of hope, Jonathan Lear asks in his short book Radical Hope, could a people have for a life well-lived going otherwise? In his brief comments on Lear’s book, the insightful Heideggerian philosopher Hubert Dreyfus points to a confusion in…
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Wondering and wandering
It is wonderful to think about the connection between wandering and wondering. ‘Wandering about, he wondered about…’ ‘Wondering, he wandered…’ The connection can be bi-causal: Wondering over X led him to wander about in the library. Wandering into the magical garden caused him to ask, ‘What in the world is that?’
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 