Author: Andrew Taggart
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On Gregory’s spiritual exercise
In Letter 31, the 4th C. Archbishop of Constantinople Gregory Nazianzen writes, On the contrary, you must do philosophy in your suffering. Now more than ever, this is the moment to purify your thoughts, and to reveal yourself as superior to your bonds [which tie you to your body]. You must consider your illness a…
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On Plath’s muscular owl
It could have been 1962 when Sylvia Plath, then 30, set down in her journal a very dark thought: “I am now flooded with despair, almost hysteria, as if I were smothering. As if a great muscular owl were sitting on my chest, its talons clenching & constricting my heart.” 1963 was the year her…
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Michael Lind on the 5 worldviews dominating American politics
In “The Five Worldviews That Define American Politics,” Michael Lind constructs a powerful conceptual framework in order to explain the trenchant, abiding political disagreements among Americans. The reason that you and I can’t see eye-to-eye is not that we disagree about the facts on the ground; it is that we begin from entirely different first…
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On the joy of biking
Is there anything more wondrous than biking again after a period of long rest following injury? Nietzsche calls happiness that “feeling that power increases–that a resistance is overcome.” The return to exercising capacities. The joy of movement for its own sake. The sublimation of aggression in the form of purposive movement. The enjoyment of the…
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Notes toward an understanding of anarchism
Update: Is there an anarchist revolution going on in Egypt? * * * According to the political philosopher Raymond Geuss, there are two kinds of anarchism. Philosophical anarchism involves rejecting the moral authority of the state while believing that the state is a “necessary evil.” Political anarchism goes further, arguing from the premise that the state’s…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 