Author: Andrew Taggart

• June 8, 2012

  Hegel on funding and fundraising

  The Fundraising Conceptual Error: You are not We Most fundraising campaigns do not make a whole lot of sense to me. They import an error in conception into their very structure and then seek to overcome this error by means of defensive pleas, subtle force, and the offering or reminder of benefits. The conceptual error…
• June 7, 2012

  Aristotle, Book II, Nicomachean Ethics

  In Book II of the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the nature of the virtues. I am rereading the book for something like the umpteenth time. Three excerpts left strong impressions on me, but first I would like to make some comments. On Pleasure and Pain. The appeal of the first excerpt is that Aristotle makes…
• June 6, 2012

  Walking… philosophy… waking: A reverie

  My personal essay on Daoism and philosophical practice can now be read at The Dark Mountain Project. In terms of genre, it embodies the form of a gift. It also serves as a companion piece for my intellectual history, “Following Nature’s Course,” Dark Mountain Project: Book 3, which is forthcoming.
• June 5, 2012

  On the art of climbing

  So here we are on this third day in June. This week I begin my inquiry into the art (ars) of climbing in the hope of expressing the most graceful, most grateful, most powerful movement of which I am capable. The cultivation of graceful movement in the climbing world has been all but lost by…
• June 4, 2012

  I biked home with silk…

  I biked home with silk. The late night was so silky, silk-spun, silk-fed, as silky as I was. All was clear and translucent, the moon fuller than it had been, and all along I went without plans. I was not frightened by this; my self-assurance was a background seamless with the silken night. How the…