Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Athens and Benares

  • Lev Shestov on the Fall of Man

    Substack latest.

  • Doubting the Teachings of One’s Religion

    I argued earlier that besides its salutary role in philosophy, doubt also has a salutary role to play in religion. But I left something out, and Vito Caiati caught it: I have been thinking about your recent post “A Comparison of the Roles of Doubt in Philosophy and Religion” and would like to pose a…

  • Paradox and Contradiction between Athens and Benares

    Philosophers love a paradox but hate a contradiction.  They love that which stimulates thought but are understandably averse to that which stops it dead in its tracks.  Mystics love both. Where the discursive road ends, the mystic path begins. The mystic essays to ride contradictions, like so many koans, into the sky of the Transdiscursive.…

  • Thought, Prayer, Meditation

    "Prayer is when night descends on thought." (Alain, as quoted by Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus.) Knowing Alain, he must have intended his aphorism as a denigration of prayer. I see it the other way around. We cannot think our way out of our predicament; thinking merely allows us to map the terrain…

  • Time Apportionment as between Athens and Benares

    If a philosopher who meditates spends five hours per day on philosophy, how many hours should he spend on meditation?  One correspondent of mine, a retired philosophy professor and Buddhist, told me that if x hours are spent on philosophy, then x hours should be spent on meditation.  So five hours of philosophy ought to…

  • The Several-Storied Thomas Merton: Contemplative, Writer, Bohemian, Activist

    An outstanding essay by Robert Royal on the many Mertons and their uneasy unity in one fleshly vehicle. There is of course Merton the Contemplative, the convert to Catholicism who, with the typical zeal of the convert, took it all the way to the austerities of Trappist monasticism, and that at a time (1941) when…

  • How Much Time Should be Spent on Philosophy?

    Our Czech friend Vlastimil Vohanka writes, You blogged that doing philosophy has great value in itself; even if philosophy is aporetic. But how often, or how long per day or month, should one devote to it? Doing philosophy seems (to me at least) to have diminishing returns, if philosophy is aporetic. Or has your experience been different?…

  • Time Apportionment as Between Athens and Benares

    If a philosopher who meditates spends five hours per day on philosophy, how many hours should he spend on meditation?  One corresondent of mine, a retired philosophy professor and Buddhist, told me that if x hours are spent on philosophy, then x hours should be spent on meditation.  So five hours of philosophy ought to…

  • Mature Religion is Open-Ended Too: More Quest Than Conclusions

    The following is from an interview with A. C. Grayling who is speaking of the open mind and open inquiry: It’s a mindset, he reveals, that “loves the open-endedness and the continuing character of the conversation that humankind has with itself about all these things that really matter.” It’s also a way of thinking that…

  • The Problem of the Fugitive Thought: Write It Down Before It Escapes!

    If you are blessed by a good thought, do not hesitate to write it down at once. Good thoughts are visitors from Elsewhere and like most visitors they do not like being snubbed or made to wait. Let us say a fine aphorism flashes before your mind. There it is is fully formed. All you…

  • Abraham, Isaac, and an Aspect of the Problem of Revelation

    God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"God say, "You can do what you want Abe, butThe next time you see me comin' you better run"Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"God says, "Out on Highway 61." Bob Dylan, Highway…

  • Athens and Benares

    Every morning it is the same for me, a struggle between ‘Athens’ and ‘Benares.’ Let me explain.