Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Aphorisms and Observations

  • A Groundless Stereotype about Stereotypes

    Not all stereotypes are negative; some are positive. And not all stereotypes lack a fundamentum in re; some are based in reality. I just made two distinctions.  It is a stereotype both negative and without a foundation in reality that all stereotypes lack a foundation in reality.

  • Braggadocio, Self-Deprecation, Contempt

    Brag and your peers will hate you. A little self-deprecation may win their hearts. Too much will earn their contempt. We learn these things by living. 

  • Chutzpah

    The leftist mayor of one of our most crime-ridden cities demanded police protection en route to a demonstration at which she joined in the vilification of the police.

  • Know Thyself!

    He who knows himself know someone who inevitably in many a particular is not worth knowing. And he who knows this knows something worth knowing and someone who in at least one particular is worth knowing.

  • Inadequacy and Self Knowledge

    I bemoan my faults and limitations, both intellectual and moral, but my bemoaning them shows that I am aware of them, which in turn shows that I possess self-knowledge, which is nothing to bemoan!

  • Safety First?

    A nation for which safety and security are leading values is one headed for the ashcan of history. Did the great mariners of sea and space live by Safety First?

  • The Upside of Moral Failure

    It teaches humility.

  • The Noble and the Base

    If a noble man becomes aware of my moral defects, he is saddened, disappointed, disillusioned perhaps.  But the base man reacts differently: he is gleeful, pleased, reassured. "So he isn't better than me after all! Good!" The noble seek those who are above them so that they can become like them.  The base deny that anyone could be…

  • A Life Spent Making Repairs

    Psychologically damaged early on by parents, relatives, teachers, circumstances, and blows of fate, one spends the rest of one's life making repairs.

  • Both Weak and Strong

    Reason is weak in the discernment of reasons, strong in the crafting of rationalizations. But the strength of rationalizing reason  derives not from reason but from passion and her subornation of reason.

  • Of Friendship and Expiry

    Some friendships have expiration dates, typically in very fine print illegible to the eager eyes of the newly enamored.

  • Wer Schreibt, der Bleibt!

    "He who writes, remains." But the goal cannot be to 'remain' but to express the truth .

  • Being With

    It is sometimes good to be with others, but never if it demands loss of self.

  • The Skeptic

    The true skeptic does not deny truth. He is an inquirer who so loves truth that he will accept no substitutes, no easy answers, no comforting dogmatisms.  That some skeptics become Pyrrhonian slackers is no argument against skepticism properly understood. The true skeptic is an inquirer, not a denier.

  • Tempted?

    Indulgence weakens; resistance strengthens.