Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Autobiographical

  • Why Keep a Journal?

    It was 42 years ago today that I first began keeping a regular journal. Before that, as a teenager, I kept some irregular journals. Why maintain a journal? When I was 16 years old, my thought was that Ididn't want time to pass with nothing to show for it. That is still my thought. The unrecorded life…

  • The Dumbest Thing I Ever Did . . .

    . . . I did on this date, October 3,  in 1972.  I sold my 1969 vintage Gibson ES 335 TD.  A forty year regret.   I needed money.  I parted with it, mint-condition, for $200.  Worth about $6000 now.  But it's not the money. It was one fine axe.

  • Farrell in Flagstaff

      It was my pleasure to meet science writer and long-time reader and friend of MavPhil, John Farrell, in Flagstaff Friday evening.  He was in town for a conference on the origins of the expanding universe, as he reports in Forbes here.  Flag is a lovely dorf sitting at 7,000 feet amongst the pines and…

  • My Epitaph

    Here he lies old blogger BillWhose thoughts once did the ether fillBut permalinks proved no exceptionTo the gen'ral rule of imperfection.

  • A Test for Marital Compatibility: Travelling Together

    I just heard Dennis Prager say on his nationally syndicated radio show that travelling  together is a good test for marital compatibility. Sage advice. Long before I had heard of Prager I subjected my bride-to-be to such a test.  I got the idea from the delightful 1982 movie The Diner.  One of the guys who hung out at…

  • Teaching Versus Conducting Classes

    At a gathering of Boston academicians some years back, by way of a conversational opener, I said to Professor X, "I understand you teach at the University of L." The good professor replied, "I conduct   classes at the University of L." I found that to be a very good distinction, one borne out by my…

  • Maverick Philosopher Eighth Blogiversary

    I began this weblog eight years ago today in 2004. The rumors of blogging's demise have been vastly exaggerated.  What has happened is that those whose purposes all along were more social and less serious have moved on to the so-called social media, Facebook and Twitter.   Read or unread, whether by sages or fools, I shall blog on.…

  • Politics: Would That I Could Avoid It

    Using 'quietist' in a broad sense as opposed to the Molinos-Fenelon-Guyon sense, I would describe myself as a quietist rather than as an activist. The point of life is not action, but contemplation, not doing, but thinking. (I mean 'thinking' in a very broad sense that embraces all forms of intentionality as well as meditative non-thinking.) …

  • Are You an Introvert?

    The bolded material below is taken verbatim from Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking (Crown 2012), p. 13.  I then give my responses.  The more affirmative responses, the more of an introvert you are. 1. I prefer one-on-one conversations to group activities. Absolutely!  Especially in philosophical discussions. …

  • Philosophy, Superman, and Richard C. Potter

    I was pleased to hear from Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence this morning.  He inquired: About four or five years ago you wrote about an American writer and thinker, perhaps an academic philosopher, who published, I believe, two books and seemed to disappear. You had difficulty finding information about him online. I believe you said…

  • What I Like About Wittgenstein

    He was one serious man.  I have always had contempt for unserious people, unserious people in philosophy being the very worst. You know the type: the bland and blasé  whose civility is not born of wisdom and detachment but is a mere urbanity sired by a jocose superficiality.  I have always had the sense that something is stake in life,…

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: Gerry Rafferty

    The Guardian obituary has him born on 16 April 1947 and dead on 4 January 2011.  I recall his smash Baker Street from the far-off and fabulous summer of 1978.  It came over the car radio in my quondam girl friend's Toyota  many times as we drove from Boston, Mass to Dayton, O to secure me an apartment there. …

  • The Hyphenated American

    One may gather from my surname that I am of Italian extraction. Indeed, that is the case in both paternal and maternal lines: my mother was born near Rome in a place called San Vito Romano, and my paternal grandfather near Verona in the wine region whence comes Valpollicella. Given these facts, some will refer…

  • Some Aptronyms

    An aptronym is a name that "suits the nature or occupation of its   bearer," as the erudite Dr. Gilleland explains. Some examples from my  experience: 1. During part of my tenure at the University of Dayton, the secretary of the Philosophy Department was Mrs. Betty Hume. 2. While a graduate student in Boston in the 1970s, I heard…

  • Dale Tuggy Pays Me a Visit; Belief Versus Acceptance

    Dale Tuggy was kind enough yesterday to drive all the way from Tucson to my place in the foothills of the Superstition Mountains.  He came on short notice and late in the day but we managed to pack in more than six hours of nonstop conversation on a wide range of philosophical and theological topics. …