Tag: Reason

• April 27, 2012

  Love as plenitude: A prelude

  Theodicy (Leibniz’s coinage) is a justification of the ways of God to man. To “justify the ways of God to man” was Milton’s project in Paradise Lost. This justification can seem urgent, and especially fraught, when one cannot deny the existence of evil but at the same time believes wholeheartedly in the existence of a benevolent,…
• March 29, 2012

  On the suicide’s claims and the philosopher’s replies

  I want to consider the question of suicide and I think a good place to begin is with a quote from the French writer Albert Camus. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts…
• October 27, 2011

  A critique of CBT – Part 2

  Kantian Critique as Just Generosity Kant’s conception of critique is meant to give us an accurate assessment of the instrument under investigation: of its proper uses, overuses, and misuses. There is a generosity of spirit in showing a pupil how something is to be used as well as in admonishing her for using it in ways…
• October 26, 2011

  A critique of CBT – Part 1

  Update: I’ve written some later reflections on CBT entitled “A Re-Evaluation of CBT.”  The latter post is the culmination of over a year of working with conversation partners whose previous experiences were in cognitive therapies. Throughout, it should be borne in mind that I consider philosophical practice (for more about which, see here) to bear no resemblance to…