Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Aphorisms and Observations

  • Observations on the Joys of Teaching

    Teaching is the feeding of people who aren't hungry. Teaching philosophy is the feeding of people who are neither hungry nor know what food is. Teaching is like agitating water in a glass with one's forefinger. As long as the finger is in motion, the water is agitated; but as soon as the finger is…

  • The Sound of Silence

    Silence is a grating clangor to the unwhole man.

  • Pascal’s Wager: Minimalist Version

    Believing in God and the soul incurs no costs and disbelieving brings no benefits.

  • At the Zoo: The Aspiring Animal

    And here we have an animal who aspires.  Unfortunately, his aspirations arise from a material substratum that mocks them, and whose collapse will soon enough spell their end.  Or so it seems.  If the seeming is so, is not the life of these animals absurd?

  • Liberal Bias

    Liberal bias leads those in its thrall to deny that there is — liberal bias. Liberalism curiously insulates its acolytes from self-recognition.

  • Tribalism

    One of my darker thoughts is that in the end tribal allegiances trump whatever people piously imagine unites us.

  • The Higgs Boson

    The discovery of it, or rather of evidence of its existence, required the torturing of nature with huge super-colliders.  But can we rely on information obtained by torture? 

  • A Use of Old Age

    Old age is a good time for the continence whose practice was too difficult in younger days.   But wait too long, and your vices will abandon  you before you abandon them.  Scant is the merit of continence born of incapacity.

  • Grist and Mill

    To live well we need both grist and mill: the grist of experience and the mill of philosophy.

  • Self-Deprecation

    There is usually more of self than of deprecation in self-deprecation.

  • I Run, Therefore I Think

    The atavism and simplicity and cleansing quality of a good hard run are particularly beneficial for Luftmenschen.  Paradoxically, the animality of running releases lofty (lüftig) thoughts.  Running along the ground one ascends into the aether.   Curro, ergo cogito.

  • Academic Philosophy (with an addendum on Human Corruption)

    Academic philosophy too often degenerates into a sterile intellectual game whose sole function is to inflate and deflate the egos of the participants.  But this is no surprise: everything human is either degenerate or will become degenerate. …………………….. Addendum: 2:45 PM Long-time blogger-buddy and supplier of high-quality links and comments, Bill Keezer, comments: Academic anything…

  • Life is for Living

    Life is for living. And risks are for taking.  But Henry David Thoreau says it best: "A man sits as many risks as he runs."  The other side of the coin is that the risks must be proportional to the rewards. No living well without risks.  No living long without circumspection. 

  • The Sound of One Hand Slapping

    To hear the sound of one hand slapping twice, turn the other cheek.

  • A Razor’s Edge

    One must both strive and submit, doubt and believe, question and trust.