Author: Andrew Taggart
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Good news from conversation partners
Some good news from a handful of current and former conversation partners in my philosophy practice: One is leaving behind professional work to start an organic farm in the country. Another is, after a long hiatus, completing a master’s thesis on sustainability. Another is launching an artist retreat and craftsmanship school in 2014. Another has rented…
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Self-sufficiency in rural Appalachia
In rural Appalachia (the penultimate syllable pronounced like the ‘a’ in ‘apple’, not like the ‘a’ in ‘staple’), self-sufficiency is not an essential characteristic of Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, the divine unmoved around which everything else moves. Nor is it the intrinsic property of Spinoza’s substance, that which is ontologically independent for its existence. For generation…
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Iago’s power exposes powerlessness
A mountain storm ill-prepares one for its sublime power. Within hours, the power flicks on and off and is out. Night has long fallen, and the mountain–a Iago–shows another, more fearsome side of itself. Its power exposes our powerlessness. Days without power and without adequate supplies reveal how little one who has acquired an excellent…
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Searching is not search
Nicholas Carr begins his blog post, ‘The Searchers,’ as follows, When we talk about “searching” these days, we’re almost always talking about using Google to find something online. That’s quite a twist for a word that has long carried existential connotations, that has been bound up in our sense of what it means to be conscious…
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E.F. Schumacher and post-industrial cottage industries
Since I have been corresponding more frequently with individuals at Schumacher College and The New Economics Institute (formerly known as The Schumacher Society), it seemed a good idea to read E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, a collection of thematically related essays on economics, ethics, and the nature of organizations. Published in…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 