Latest Posts


  • Hesiod’s Chaos and Laozi’s Way

    PHIL 1060, Monday nights, 19 Sep 2016 Grounding ourselves in how the ancient Greeks and Chinese thought about the order of things. First, we discussed the basics of Hesiod’s mythopoeic worldview as a procreative cosmogony. Then, we moved over to… Continue reading

    Hesiod’s Chaos and Laozi’s Way
  • Encountering the Encompassing

    PHIL 1050, MWF @ 1:00pm, Monday 19 Sep 2016 My young friends were asked to read Jaspers chapter on das Umgreifende, the Encompassing or as Ralph Mannheim translates the term in Way to Wisdom, the Comprehensive. Not an easy thing to… Continue reading

    Encountering the Encompassing
  • The nameless backgrounds the nameable

    MWF PHIL 1050.006, 1:00pm, Friday 16 Sep 2016 We took a close look at poem 1 about the Dao (Way), spending time on the (ironic) difference between the Nameless and the nameable. Basically, it is difficult to name the Ultimate Source of Reality… Continue reading

    The nameless backgrounds the nameable
  • Metaphysics, Memory, and Dewey

    I was asked to drop by my colleague’s class and hold forth on Chapter 1 of John Dewey’s text The Reconstruction of Philosophy (get the text here). Here are the recordings from those days. Had some good discussions with the folks… Continue reading

    Metaphysics, Memory, and Dewey
  • Mythopoesis

    Intro to Philosophy (MWF @ 1pm)–12 Sep 2016 We went through the beginning of Greek philosophy in Hesiod/Homer in their attempt to express a just world order through making-narratives (mythopoesis) of gods and the birth of the cosmos. This led to… Continue reading

    Mythopoesis
  • and… still

    …Still There she sits in memory Drifting on the edge of tomorrow Laughter fills the daydream light Tears baptize her pillows Time is stillness, time is… Every night in prayer for love Recalling all the dearest hearts That sometimes called… Continue reading

  • Pressing against

    Intro to Philosophy (MWF @ 1pm)–09 Sep 2016 We went through and hit some notions from Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  Continue reading

    Pressing against
  • The duty of being friends

    M-W-F @ 1:00pm, lecture for 8/31/2016. The relationship of philosophizing (caring as skillfulness of mind) to freedom (the duty-to-be-friends) by way of mindful lineage. Continue reading

  • Whatification

    First Monday evening class for Fall 2016, Intro to Philosophy. I am treating the afternoon class and the evening class as two very distinct iterations of the same material. For the evening class, like the earlier one, I started with… Continue reading

    Whatification
  • Getting under way

    First class for  my 1:00pm iteration of Introduction to Philosophy on M – W – F. Continue reading

    Getting under way