The evil of human nature runs too deep to have merely social or environmental causes. This is a truth illustrated by the willfullness of those who refuse to understand it.
Category: Aphorisms and Observations
The Value of Enemies
One can sometimes learn best from one's enemies since they will most certainly attack where one is weakest.
Like Trying to Feed the Unhungry
You don't waste time trying to serve food to those with full bellies or no bellies. Why then do you teach philosophy? To fill your belly.
Assignable to the Future
We assign death to the future. But the death so assignable is not the one that threatens us.
Putting On One’s Face
Before leaving the house one must put on one's face. The step into the social is by dissimulation.
Success Enough?
Money in my pocket, food in my belly, clothes on my back, a roof over my head, physical and mental health. What does it say about us that the possession of things like these is not success enough? Aim high! Try high! Forget Bukowski.
Write it Down!
Visitors do not like being snubbed. If a good thought deigns to make an appearance before the portal of your mind, write it down. Snubbed, it may never come again. But even if it does, will it come clothed in the same felicitous finery of formulation?
Exception and Rule
It is regrettably the rule, not the exception, for a person to make an exception in his own case.
Necessary but Not Sufficient
Acceptance of one's lot in life is necessary but not sufficient for happiness.
The Joy of Philosophy
One of its joys is the joy of the hunt — for very big game indeed. And one advantage of hunting is that its joy does not require the finding, or even the existence, of the hunted.
The Strangeness of the Ordinary
A philosopher is one who is attuned to the strangeness of the ordinary.
The Mystery of Mind
The mystery of mind is summed up in the seemingly oxymoronic phrase 'intrinsic relationality.'
The Platonist Speaks
If it won't matter by tomorrow that these eggs are undercooked, why does it matter now?
Dogmatists
Not content to seek the truth, they would possess it even if what they finally possess are mere convictions, and thus obstacles to truth. They value doxastic security over contact with reality.
The Knot at the End of the Thread
To philosophize without dogma is like sewing without a knot at the end of the thread. (Kierkegaard) But to philosophize with dogma is not to philosophize at all.