Author: Andrew Taggart
-
If winter didn’t come, would spring or fall appear?
My review essay of Adam Gopnik’s Winter: Five Windows on the Season (Toronto: Anansi Press, 2011) can be read now or, pending that, fairly soon at Writing in Public. The book is comprised of a set of five lectures that Gopnik, a longtime New Yorker writer, Montreal native, and NYC denizen, delivered on CBC Radio in November…
-
Friends as fellow travelers; or, the art of saying farewell
The following is a spiritual exercise (ascesis) in the art of saying farewell. The former friend whom I’m addressing in the letter has an extensive background in music, physics, and philosophy, has a prestigious academic pedigree, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in philosophy. We first met only days after I moved to NYC, a…
-
‘Therefore, I tried the hammer…’: On how not to receive a gift
The impetus for the following letter was a guffaw. Last week I ordered a copy of Hubert Dreyfus’s Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time and, by mistake, had had it shipped to my conversation partner’s residence. Here: a non-gift for you! Thanks! In his turn, he had mailed the book to me. On Monday,…
-
Gift economy explained, justified, and defended
Gift Economy Explained 1. Suppose A gives B a gift wholeheartedly. (By “wholeheartedly,” I mean without reserve or hesitation, without holding back or misgivings. Positively, I mean: “giving forth freely or receiving plentifully.”) 2. Then B receives the gift wholeheartedly. 3. It follows that B is goodly indebted to A. The debt is lighter, not…
-
On a good friend being a good introducer
One of my friends, Dougald Hine, told me once that a good friend is someone who senses when to introduce who to whom. (I take him to be talking about action, not about grammatical constructions.) Let’s parse this statement. First of all, an introduction is not a recommendation, i.e., not a “should” statement, but a…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 