metaphysics
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What appears tends to disappear
Φύσις δε… kαθ’ Ηραkλειτον… kρύπτεσθαι φιλεΐ Phúsis de… kath’ Erakleiton… krúptesthai phileî (Qtd in Themistius, Orations 5.69b, DK B123) The story I am about to tell therefore begins symbolically at Ephesus, in Asia Minor, around 500 BCE, on the day… Continue reading
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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
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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
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#rationihilization
When an otherwise reasonable person–who like all humans depends on comparative sense-making–reaches the limits of thinking where all comparisons fail and, rather than admitting “I don’t know”, declares that everything is meaningless. This requires him/her to ignore the performative irony that… Continue reading
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Fate and the Wire
Tautological understanding is very much a part of The Wire‘s metaphysics. David Simon directs/authors the series structurally along the lines of Greek Tragedy rather than the Shakesperean variety. Essential paths–following the strict law of identity–play a huge role in instantiating a… Continue reading
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Primacy of Ethics over Metaphysics
From a consideration of the primacy of ethics in Dante’s The Banquet by Etienne Gilson in Dante the Philosopher (1948): …the Crystaline heaven, or Primum Mobile, ordains by its motion the daily revolution of all the other heavens, a revolution that enables them to receive and transmit… Continue reading
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The Matter of Mind
It’s not enough to have a brain. Consciousness—a hallmark of humans, mammals, birds, and even octopuses—is that mysterious force that makes all those neurons and synapses “tick” and merge into “you.” It’s what makes you alert and sensitive to your… Continue reading
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Military Metaphysics: How Militarism Mangles the Mind
Homer in “The Iliad” showed his understanding of war. His heroes are not pleasant men. They are vain, imperial, filled with rage and violent. And Homer’s central character in “The Odyssey,” Odysseus, in his journey home from war must learn… Continue reading
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Afternoon Memo 20140202
My MEMO Status update on FB: Some caricature metaphysics as the most meaningless of abstractions: e.g. pondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Such examples work precisely to say that the “beyond” trumps the now/here… Continue reading
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Ecstasy
“Blessed and holy, I would say, is he to whom it has been given to experience such a thing in this mortal life at rare intervals or even once; and this suddenly and scarcely for the space of a single… Continue reading
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Flowing Exploration
Metaphysics as a way of thinking suffers from confusion with superstition. As I have noted before, superstition encompasses more than the narrow notion thrown around by the “educated” where a person has irrational beliefs about a relationship between an imagined… Continue reading
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Upon the Depths of Uncertainty
Consider metaphysical thinking as the building up of vessels allowing us to explore the oceans of reality. Their hulls carry the provisions of our accumulated knowledge. Their rudders direct course by the pole star of the “Why not?” Their sails… Continue reading
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Daodejing 29
#29* Desiring to possess all under heaven by force I think this never works. All under heaven is sacred. It cannot be taken over by force. It is uncontrollable. Possessiveness destroys; Control loses. Hence, the sage “does nothing” (wu wei)†… Continue reading
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Radiant Living
My good brother, Andrew J. Taggart, continues his series of meditations on Radiant Living. I highly recommend Andrew’s work. He is a diligent, insightful counselor who is committed to reinvigorating the notion of philosophy as a way of life. Related… Continue reading
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The Tenth Dimension
So, there is a lot of mind blowing thinking out in the realm of contemporary physics. Those of us who know the history of philosophy are not afraid to call a good deal of this metaphysics. Certainly, it is the… Continue reading
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