Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Aphorisms and Observations

  • Ars vivendi longa, sed vita brevis

    Life is too short to master the art of life. That is surely the case for most. A few old souls are exceptions to the rule. 

  • Self-Deprecation

    A modicum of self-deprecation,  judiciously deployed, will enhance your relations with others. Too much will earn contempt, and the opposite hostility.

  • Progress in Philosophy

    I am making progress in philosophy, which is not to say that philosophy is making progress in me.  

  • Earning and Living

    The trick is to earn a living without living to earn.

  • Your Vehicle

    Keep it roadworthy. But it's only a vehicle. And life's only a road. And don't forget to take it easy. We're going to the end of the line.

  • Reason

    Reason calls itself into question but often won't allow a challenge from anything other than reason. But if reason, despite its weakness, has the power to limit its reach and curb its pretensions, then it is strange indeed that it should not allow this power to other sources of insight such as faith, mystical intuition,…

  • Writing and Reading

    He who writes may or may not be read, but he who only reads will never be read.

  • A Meta-Aphorism

    An aphorism that comments on itself is no aphorism, which fact does not rule out commentary on aphorisms.

  • Accept No Ersatz Soteriology!

    The eschaton will not be immanentized.

  • The Good Teacher

    On a given topic, the good teacher at the university level does not teach the student what to think about the topic, but what to think about when thinking about the topic.

  • Human Relationships

    The good ones require differences, but the differences must be complementary, not contradictory, like the halves of a natural whole that  make up the whole, complementing but not contradicting each other.

  • Truth and Power

    'Speaking truth to power' is a phrase leftists love when they are out of power; in power, they exercise it, and truth be damned. They imbibed mendacity with their mothers' milk.

  • Extreme to Extremists

    Moderate views are extreme to extremists. Our moderate views must appear as extreme to the hard-leftists who have hijacked the once respectable Democrat Party, so-called by us because it can no longer be  referred to truthfully as democratic.

  • Love of Neighbor

    Love of neighbor is made easier by wise choice of neighborhood.

  • Neither Piety nor Polemic

    Neither piety nor polemic belong in philosophy proper. …………………………….. Commentary: 0) No proper aphorism is an aphorism if it explains itself  or gives reasons for its own truth. And yet a good aphorism is the tip of an iceberg of thought susceptible of commentary. 1) So when I, as a philosopher, speak of God, I…