Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Credo

  • Credo

    Simone Weil's Profession of Faith begins  as follows.  There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties. Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good,…

  • Three Possible Death-Bed Thoughts

    I'm glad I lived, but I'm glad it's over.  "I hope never to return." (Frida Kahlo)  Once is enough. I wish I'd never been born.  Once is too much.  This is the wisdom, if wisdom it is,  of Silenus, reported by Sophocles (Oedipus at Colonus, ll. 1244 ff.) and quoted by Nietzsche in The Birth…

  • 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…

  • Religious Belief and What Inclines Me to It

    This from an English reader: As you may recall, I'm a persistent reader of your blog – even when the 'topic of the day' goes right over my head. On the minimalist version of Pascal's wager, you summarize: "So how can I lose? Even if they are illusions, believing in God and the soul incurs…

  • Is Death an Evil or Not?

    I go back and forth on this question.  I should be ashamed of myself.  Forty years a philosopher and no fixed view on such a fundamental question?  What am I (not) being paid to do?  To gain some clarity, I will sketch some possible views.  I will also sketch the  view to which  I incline…

  • My Position on Free Will

    This from a Norwegian reader: I have been enjoying your blog for a couple of years now, and I have to say that I like how your mind works. There are a lot of issues I am thinking about currently regarding philosophy and that didn't change after reading Angus Menuge's book Agents Under Fire. If…

  • Fragment of a Credo

    I cannot know whether my life makes ultimate sense.  But I can live as if it does, and if I do I will live better than if I live as if it does not. I cannot know whether my life is bounded by bodily birth and death. But I can live as if it is…