Category: Autobiographical
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The Great Blizzard of ’78 Remembered
I had an odd schedule in those days. I hit the sack at four in the afternoon and got up at midnight. I caught the last trolley of the night to the end of the line, Boston College station. Got off, hiked up the hill to my office where I worked all night on my…
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Juvenilia
I pulled out my scribblings from the summer of '66. Puerile stuff from a half-century ago. Painful in places. But earnest and sincere with a good line here and there. The old man honors the adolescent he was. I wrote for posterity, though I didn't realize it at the time. And I still do. The…
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Lousy Teachers
They unwittingly gave me the confidence that I could do what they do, and indeed do it better, but they also deprived me of the intellectual formation that I had to spend years developing on my own. They set me forward, and they set me back. To cheat students is bad enough; to corrupt them…
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What’s with “Footnotes to Plato” from your Masthead? Are you a Platonist?
Well, all of us who uphold the Western (Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman) tradition are Platonists in a broad sense if Alfred North Whitehead is right in his observation that: The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of…
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Another Useful Idiot Crosses My Path
I'm the chess guy hereabouts. A year ago I got a call from an 86-year-old retired chemist with an interest in the game. A meeting was arranged, a game was played, and then the talk turned to politics. The old man told us that he had voted for Biden out of revulsion at Trump. He…
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MaverickPhilo@Twitter
Here I am. Pay me a visit. I don't quite know the ropes yet. Who will be Facebook's Elon Musk? Hats off to the latter. Middle finger to the former. Without free speech, republics collapse. Our republic is collapsing and there may be no stopping the slide into the abyss; but as the saying goes,…
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Wife and Life, Truth and Practice
My wife is easy-going, tolerant, forgiving, good-hearted, and unselfish. Hungry, she bought herself a Costco hot dog and then, without my asking, gave me the lion's share,* concerned that I was hungry! I chose well in matters marital. Human nature leaves a lot to be desired. And yet there is goodness and nobility in some…
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Willie Horton Revisited
I posted the following on my Facebook page this morning. Go there for my political linkage and 'rantage.' …………………………………… I have a confession to make. I voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988! Do I have an excuse? If I have one, it is that my 'default setting' is apolitical. I'm a metaphysician by inclination, and…
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Pretty Feeble Stuff
Much of what I post here is pretty feeble stuff. But damned if I don't love this daily scribbling!
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‘Handsome Devil’
I visited a couple of aunts some years back. As I entered her house, Aunt Ada exclaimed, "My, you are a handsome devil!" Aunt Margaret said to Ada, "Don't call him a devil!" But of course Ada did no such thing; Margaret failed to appreciate that 'handsome' in 'handsome devil' in this context and almost…
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University of Dayton Philosophy Department Circa 1980
Amazing what one can dredge up from the vasty deeps of cyberspace!
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Why Am I So Happy?
From my Facebook page, three years ago, pre-COVID-19, pre-Biden, before things really got bad. But I am still happy. For some of us happiness is a basal state, bred-in-the-bone, affected somewhat by external circumstances, but not by much. ……………………………… My beloved country looks to be going the way of the Roman empire: overextended…
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Why We Get Along
I'm reasonable; she's sweet and agreeable.