Category: Autobiographical
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Karl Barth, Divine Revelation, and Mystical Experience
"It [divine revelation] is the opening of a door that can only be unlocked from the inside." Quoted by Thomas Merton in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Image Books, 1965, p. 10) from a Christmas sermon preached by Karl Barth in 1931. I am going to take this ball and run with it. Imagine someone…
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All’s Well that Ends Well
The hike was almost over. The light was failing as we gingerly negotiated the last steps of the treacherous downgrade of Heart Attack Hill on the Bluff Spring Trail in the Superstition Mountains. Suddenly my hiking partner let out a yell and jumped back at the unmistakable sound of a diamond back rattlesnake (crotalus atrox). …
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Remembering Quentin Smith
My old friend died on this date last year. If in your life you find one truly kindred soul, then you are lucky indeed. Quentin was that soul for me. This piece captures the man. Quentin Smith was exactly the kind person who’s not supposed to exist in modern, ultra-specialized, ultra-professionalized academia. The kind of…
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Why I Will not Support my Alma Mater: An Open Letter
2 November 2021 Cheryl Mott Smith Executive Director Gift Planning Loyola Marymount University cheryl.smith@lmu.edu Dear Cheryl Mott Smith, I am an LMU graduate, class of '72. I am now in a position to make substantial monetary contributions to causes I deem worthy. LMU will not be on my list. As a classical…
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An Old Descartes Joke
In the fall of 1989 a female student at Case Western Reserve University told me the following Descartes joke. Our man stops at a bar, the 'tender asks whether he wants a drink, Descartes says, "I think not, then disappears. I replied, pedantically, "I think therefore I am" is not logically equivalent to "I think…
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Not All Academic Philosophers are Leftists!
Dissident Philosophers Voices Against the Political Current of the Academy EDITED BY T. ALLAN HILLMAN AND TULLY BORLAND The book consists of sixteen essays (and an introduction) from prominent philosophers who are at odds with the predominant political trend(s) of academic philosophy, political trend(s) primarily associated with leftism. Some of these philosophers identify explicitly with the…
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Big Sur, Kerouac, and Being on the Edge
Dwight Green writes, I had forgotten about your focus on the Beats in October (more of a remembrance of Kerouac, if I remember right) until I saw your recent post introducing it for this year. A couple of years ago I drove to the Big Sur area and was unable to do much hiking…
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Berdyaev on the Moral Source of Atheism
There are respectable forms of atheism. The atheist needn't be a rebellious punk stuck in intellectual adolescence, swamped by sensuality, and given to self-idolatry. Nicholas Berdyaev, The Destiny of Man (Harper Torchbooks, 1960, tr. Natalie Duddington, p. 24): It is precisely the traditional theology that leads good men, inspired by moral motives, to atheism. The…
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Quietism at War with Activism
EVAGRIOS PONTIKOS enjoins apatheia, a state of deep calm, of tranquillity of mind. Hard to achieve, it is in need of constant protection. Why then do I follow current political and other events? Why do I put myself in a position to have my peace of mind disturbed? I tell myself to do both: live…
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Almost Mugged in the Big Easy
I came close to being mugged in New Orleans' French Quarter in '90 or '91. I was there to read a paper at an American Philosophical Association meeting. Early one morning I left the hotel to sample the local color and grab some breakfast. Striding along Bourbon street, I noticed a couple of black dudes…
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Religion as Morality and as Metaphysics
I can't shake the thought that something is at stake in life. I cannot throw off the moral point of view. It addresses us from Elsewhere and calls us insistently to a Higher Life. It matters how we live. And this despite our being miserable bits of the Earth's fauna. This mattering cannot be a…
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Do I Miss Teaching?
I am enjoying classroom teaching quite a bit now that I no longer do it. With some things it is not the doing of it that we like so much as the having done it. One day in class I carefully explained the abbreviation ‘iff’ often employed by philosophers and mathematicians to avoid writing ‘if…
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Why Do I Write about Political Topics?
People are increasingly 'siloed into' their positions. I don't write to change the minds of our political enemies. Why do I write, then? First, to arrive at the truth as best I can for my own edification and enjoyment. People like me like to figure things out and understand things. On our good days we theoreticians…
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My PhilPapers and PhilPeople Pages
I have been hard at work sprucing up these pages, adding content and links for the download of some of my papers, and correcting errors. I still have a lot of work to do. Take a gander if you care to. Most of my reviews are substantial review articles, not book reports. There are a…
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Why am I so Happy?
Every day there are multiple outrages from the Left as my country turns into a police state. Why should I be happy? Well, I live in Arizona, a destination state if ever there was one, and I have lived here for going on 22 years. Today is another one of those exquisitely beautiful,…