Category: education
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Openness: The 5th virtue of philosophical life
There’s a certain sense of being open to what may come to pass that seems indispensable for living today. In The Guidebook to Philosophical Life, I had written only of four virtues–namely, of courage, patience, humility, and compassion. I had neglected the virtue of openness. Openness–the scourge of routine, an antidote to stubbornness, a lighthearted laughter…
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Musings on a mountain home
Are you alone, dear philosopher, there on that northern rock, bordered by ocean on one side and by sea on the other? Long ago, Philoctetes was–was alone, that is, was homeless, atopos, unmoored and unmanned… Feel free to look around at the blank walls, at the one-woman fashion show, at the small piles of Yes’s and…
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‘A radiant life, being good, expresses beauty…’
I am reading The Guidebook to Philosophical Life for the first time. I had written it without reading it through. Even now, I only read and mumble lines and phrases and stray poetic turns. I had written it but hadn’t realized the beauty of lines such as these. I have been reading them aloud this morning.…
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Philosophy, once again, is the search for radiance
In The Guidebook to Philosophical Life, I wrote that “philosophy is the search for radiance.” Philosophy, once again, is the search for radiance. In this search, there is an important distinction to be drawn, and lived out, between the focus of one’s energies and their dissipation. One’s energies must be corralled, directed, and intensified; they are often…
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A sketch of a public philosophy for an alternative educational model
Yesterday, I reflected on a sense of bewilderment I felt upon leaving Kaos Pilots in Denmark. I have often wondered what draws young persons to certain versions of relativism, postmodernism, and pragmatism. The answer I gave went like this: There is considerable appeal in this public philosophy: rejection of the old [evident in relativism], relief…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 