Category: Autobiographical
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Five Years of Blogging
Actually, my 'blogiversary' was yesterday. My inaugural post appeared on 4 May 2004. My mind drifts back to some of my earliest acquaintances in the blogosphere. I am happy to see that most of them are still at it. Here is a partial list: Keith Burgess-Jackson; Gates of Vienna; Mangan's; Bill's Comments; Laudator Temporis Acti.…
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Life’s Fugacity
Here the point is very cleverly made: I turned 52 yesterday. The first decade of my life took 20 years. The second decade took 15 years. The third decade took a decade. The fourth decade took five years. The past dozen years took 12 minutes. At this rate, I'll be dead in less than half…
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Proof That Italians Talk with Their Hands
Guglielmo and Francesco discuss Trope Theory in Geneva, December 2008. Photo courtesy of Francesco Orilia. More shots here.
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My Cat, My Companion
One can see the Latin panis, bread, lurking within 'companion.' A companion, then, is one with whom one breaks bread or shares a meal. In this root sense, my cat Caissa is undeniably my companion. For after she has enjoyed her Fancy Feast repast, she is by my side eyeing my linguine in clam sauce…
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Phantom Runners
I took up running almost 35 years ago in the summer of 1974 in that romantic hub of running, Boston on the Charles, the Athens of America, where Hopkinton is Marathon and the road to Athens traverses Heartbreak Hill. It was a great time and place to be alive, young, studying philosophy, and running down…
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Ruminations After a Road Race; Philippians 4:13
The following was written 19 February 2006. This year I did better, achieving a personal best for this course, completing it in 2:23. That's nothing to crow about, but without us rank-and-file pavement pounders, the real runners would not shine in all their glory. ……………… This morning I had occasion once again to verify the…
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Leon Trotsky, Gabe Kaplan, and Today’s Road Race
I was in Tempe, Arizona a while back for a book fix. At the coffee bar in the Border's Bookstore, the thirty-something counterman remarked that I look like Gabe Kaplan, an observation seconded by some bystanders. Having no idea who Gabe Kaplan is, I commented that some people think I look like Leon Trotsky —…
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Maverick Philosopher Makes The Times Online 100 Best Blogs List
A tip of the hat to Dave Lull for pointing me to A guide to the 100 best blogs – part I. Maverick Philosopher makes the cut. See page 5. Excerpt: Two good philosophy blogs make the point that this is a subject made for bloggery. Philosophy is arguing, and arguing is what bloggers and…
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Till Eulenspiegel and Heraclitus
What do Till Eulenspiegel and Heraclitus have in common? I thought about them near the end of a recent hike. I am an uphill specialist. I love the upgrade, the pull, gravity's testing of legs and lungs, the depth of breath, the honest sweat. The downclimb is less to my liking. Fearing a fall, I am too…
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On Forever Putting One’s Tool Kit in Order
I had friends in graduate school who belonged to the class of those we jokingly referred to as graduate student emeriti. They were the perpetual students who were "not hung up on completion," to borrow a memorable line from William Hurt's character Nick in The Big Chill (1983). Free of the discipline of undergraduate school,…
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What’s in a Name?
Mike Gilleland's erudite disquisition on crappy names (craptronyms?) put me in mind of a chess opponent I once faced in a Las Vegas tournament. The fellow, a German, rejoiced under the name of David Assman. It would really have been a hoot had the tournament's venue been Fucking, Austria, near Salzburg. (If a major tournament…
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Don’t Say ‘Turkey Day’
Say 'Thanksgiving' and give thanks. You don't need to eat turkey to be thankful. Gratitude is a good old conservative virtue. I'd expatiate further, but I've got a race to run. You guessed it: a 'turkey trot.' In Mesa, Arizona, 10 kilometers = 6.2 miles. With only a couple of exceptions I've run this race…
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He Was a Friend of Mine
John F. Kennedy was assassinated 45 years ago today. Here is The Byrds' tribute to the slain leader. They took a traditional song and redid the lyrics. The young Bob Dylan here offers an outstanding interpretation of the old song. I was in the eighth grade when Kennedy was gunned down. We were assembled in an…
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Why I am Such a Hot Ticket on the Party Circuit
Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . . Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes, Abrams Image 2007, pp. 183-184: Contemporary philosopher William Vallicella writes, “Metaphilosophy is the philosophy of philosophy. It is itself a branch of philosophy, unlike the philosophy of science, which is not a branch of science,…