Category: meditation

• March 26, 2013

  Facing up to life

  We had fallen for the lure. A day before the Vernal Equinox, there were plenty of inklings of spring. The robins, even before this, had grown plump and plentiful and were everywhere seeking and pulling plump worms clean from the earth. The Pileated Woodpeckers were bashing their heads against the locust trees and, in the…
• March 25, 2013

  The worst sort of parents…

  Excluding monsters, the worst sort of parents are those who do not raise their children to be capable of being parents themselves. For Kant, the enlightened person is one who is no longer under the thumb of a ‘guardian’–in this case, a parent upon whom he is dependent–but has learned to think for himself and…
• March 22, 2013

  A comparison of the genre of drama with that of philosophical inquiry

  Compare a couple of the playwright David Mamet’s reflections on drama (the full text is available here) with my own thoughts about the genre of philosophical inquiry. (To read an excerpt from my book, The Art of Inquiry, go here): Mamet: We know any drama ends when we find the answer to the question which gave…
• March 21, 2013

  Religion without God: Our post-Kantian moment

  Ours is a post-Kantian moment. We can neither do without the idea of transcendence but nor can we embrace it as a substantial presence coursing throughout our lived experiences. For the Kant of the First Critique, reason aspires to travel beyond the bounds of human understanding but, when it does so and when it seeks…
• March 20, 2013

  Measured breath for the ear

  Directness: to mean, with each statement, what I say and to say, with each statement, what I mean–this and no more. To avoid expressions of sentiment; to be restrained, temperate, composed, never therefore to blurt out. To get to or at something at the appropriate time rather than beating around the bush. Never to be…