Category: education

• January 15, 2013

  E.F. Schumacher and post-industrial cottage industries

  Since I have been corresponding more frequently with individuals at Schumacher College and The New Economics Institute (formerly known as The Schumacher Society), it seemed a good idea to read E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, a collection of thematically related essays on economics, ethics, and the nature of organizations. Published in…
• January 14, 2013

  New website

  Since moving to rural Appalachia at the beginning of January, I have been working on a new website. Last night I finished the project. To visit the new site, you can click on andrewjamestaggart.com. For the foreseeable future, the purpose of this WordPress blog will be to post occasional reflections as well as once-weekly YouTube videos…
• December 28, 2012

  Gift economy worksheet for philosophical practice

  The following is the latest version of the gift economy worksheet I’ve begun going through with new conversation partners. It’s been quite illuminating to go through the process of inquiring with another with the common purpose of reaching mutual understanding. * Overview This worksheet is the result of about 2 years of thinking about how…
• December 26, 2012

  Visions of being human: Contemplation and action

  I’ve been trying to understand what makes a certain joke funny. It is: “I’m a person. [pause] I get things done.” The pause between personhood and the completion of actions allows for one to be surprised by the identification of a person with successful action. This joke is not too far afield from Marx’s 11th…
• December 21, 2012

  ‘Beauty of soul, according to nature’: A short course at Schumacher College

  I have been invited by Schumacher College, which offers “transformative courses for sustainable living,” to teach a short course in November 2013. The following is my first attempt to make out what the course will be about. Philosophical Background Ancient philosophers held that a good life was one lived according to nature. Notably, ‘according to’…