Category: education
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Wistfulness in these strange times…
My roaming personal essay, “Wistfulness in These Strange Times,” has just been published in Spike Magazine. The piece adduces the reasons we have for being wistful, and it describes the economic situation modern workers are going through. The essay begins, This morning I awoke in a wistful mood. The birdsong coming through my bedroom window reminded me…
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How is teaching possible?
The Novelty of the Question Richard Rorty says somewhere that great philosophers are great in virtue of their ability to invent novel questions. In so doing, they change the topic of conversation. The contemporary theologian Norman Wirzba asks a great question in his article on Emmanuel Levinas entitled “From Maieutics to Metanoia: Levinas’s Understanding of the…
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Gary Gutting on happiness, philosophy, and science
Update: If you found my website by way of Arts and Letters Daily and if you’re interested in learning more about philosophical counseling in general or my philosophy practice in particular, you might try taking the following path: First, “On Prescribing Aristotle: Show Transcript and Clarifications”; Second, “A Few Essays on Philosophy as a Way of Life”; Third, “Toward…
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‘What makes a place beautiful is the humanity that dwells there’
For Confucius human intercourse is the life element. “The superior man does not neglect his neighbors.” But in our association with men, we encounter both good and bad. “Have no friend who is not your equal,” says Confucius, but rejects the maxim: “Associate with those who are worthy of it; as for those who are…
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On the value of good taste
The following comes in response to a short blog I read about “guilty pleasures.” I’m not sure that the concept of “guilty pleasures” is coherent, but I think the concept of “shameful pleasures” is. The latter, in its misstep, seems to be indicative of our desire for good taste. But why would having good taste make any…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 