Author: Andrew Taggart
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The starting point of philosophical self-reflection
Philosophical thinking begins in severance, in cleavage, in destruction and loss. Something once as familiar as morning light has fled, and its return is in doubt. Our feet, once paddles, have morphed into trunks. Severance begets pain, pain shuddering, and shuddering puts forth philosophical words: self-reflective words, ungainly words, coarse concepts, bedraggled thoughts. Oh but…
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Making sense of Occupy Wall Street: Tragic senses and synoptic views
The Distinction between Tragic Senses and Synoptic Views It is to long form literature, above all the novel form, that we turn for a tragic sense of life. The novel especially affords the reader a phenomenological account of the tragic experiences of ordinary people leading ordinary lives amid the godlike forces of social transformation. (See,…
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You wander in philosophy in order to turn homeward
Wolfe was wrong when he said that you never can go home again. He was wrong because philosophy leads you home after your wandering. Only once you get there, you realize that the idea of home has changed, changed blessedly, blessedly changed. I Reading philosophers from all times and climes, I am struck by the…
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The return of the robots!
Beware the tin-tin bots, my friend! The jaws that bite, the hands that snatch! Beware the Jubjub can, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch! — Beware, beware because the robots are everywhere. They take our cash, they send us our buys, they give us our tickets, they feed us our food. They file our taxes,…
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Pete Worley of The Philosophy Foundation asks, ‘How many things are there?’
Yesterday, I had a nice chat with Peter Worley who’s Co-founder, with his wife Emma, of The Philosophy Foundation. According to their website, their aim is to “bring philosophy to schools and the wider community.” Over the past 10 years, they’ve been training philosophers and teachers in leading schoolchildren in the art of philosophical inquiry.…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 