Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Aphorisms and Observations

  • Degradation

    We degrade ourselves and yet expect the source of all elevation to visit and guide us?

  • ‘Not So Much’

    Do I like the increasing usage of this phrase?  Not so much.

  • Difficulties

    Many difficulties are to be subdued where alone they reside: in your own head. 

  • Death and Time

    Death is as certain as the passage of time — and as real.  But how real is that?

  • Relatives

    Some want to stay in touch, not on the basis of what one actually and presently is, but on the basis of what one was or was imagined by them to be.  And so I rarely visit the homes of my relatives.  For, as Emerson brilliantly quips in a related connection, "I do not want…

  • Identity and Diversity

    It is curious that the partisans of the politics of identity should make such a fuss about diversity.

  • The Philosopher and the Conservative

    One cannot be a philosopher without believing in the power of reason.  But one cannot be a conservative without doubting its power to order our affairs and ameliorate our condition. Equally, one cannot be a philosopher without doubting — doubt being the engine of inquiry — and one cannot be a conservative without believing, that…

  • Living to Eat

    One who lives to eat is almost as ridiculous as one who drives a car to pump gas into its tank.  In both cases a vehicle; in both cases fuel; in both cases means-end confusion.

  • If the Dead and the Undocumented Voted Conservative . . .

    . . . liberals would be screaming for voter ID.

  • Engagement with Equanimity

    Can you engage with the political while retaining peace of mind?  If not, avoid politics. The monkish virtues are easy to cultivate and practice in the monastery.  The trick, however, is to practice them in the world — where they are needed.

  • On Living Too Long

    Old age for some is a sort of afterlife in a foreign country.  One has lived beyond one's own time and now finds oneself among strangers.

  • Fruits of Civilization

    One of the fruits of civilization  is that it allows some of us to reflect upon civilization and its fruits — and its discontents.

  • The Space of Scholars

    The space of scholars is made safe by the blood of warriors.

  • Lesser Lights

    The following aphorism floated before my mind as I was reading Paul Roubiczek, Across the Abyss: Lesser lights, too, provide illumination.  And they, rather than the fixed stars in our cultural firmament, are perhaps better exemplars for us — who are lesser lights.

  • All Roads Lead to Rome

    Under protracted consideration every philosophical question inevitably raises questions about the nature, methods, and goals of philosophy.  All philosophical  roads lead to metaphilosophical Rome. Not that we will find in Rome what we could not find on the way there.