Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: James

  • Misplaced Moral Enthusiasm

    Languishing in the archives of one of the early versions of this weblog is a post bearing the above title. I shall have to resurrect, refurbish, and re-post it.  An excellent recent example of misplaced moral enthusiasm is well-described in Spring the Felon, Kill the Squirrel. This short article may help you leftists understand why…

  • Over-Belief and Romans 1: 18-20

    Substack latest. Is the Pauline passage an example of Jamesian over-belief?

  • Belief in God

    Wish-fulfillment or inducement to strenuous living? Freud versus James. Top o' the Stack.

  • To Write Well, Read Well

    The example of William James.  Excerpt: But what makes James' writing good? It has a property I call muscular elegance. The elegance has to do in good measure with the cadence, which rests in part on punctuation and sentence structure. Note the use of the semi-colon and the dash. These punctuation marks are falling into disuse, but…

  • Unusual Experiences and the Problems of Overbelief and Underbelief

    Substack latest. One day, well over 40 years ago, I was deeply tormented by a swarm of negative thoughts and feelings that had arisen because of a dispute with a certain person.  Pacing around my apartment, I suddenly, without any forethought, raised my hands toward the ceiling and said, "Release me!"  It was a wholly spontaneous cri de…

  • The Pragmatic and the Evidential

    Substack latest. On believing beyond the evidence. Immoral? Irrational?

  • 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…

  • Stalin the Bookman

    Here is a review of Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin's Library: A Dictator and his Books. Excerpts: He was also an avid reader. Roberts’s book begins as an analysis of the personal library Stalin left behind, scattered around his various dachas and offices. It comprised some 25,000 volumes, covering a wide range of subjects including Marxism, political…

  • Among the Riddles of Existence

    Among the riddles of existence are the riddles that are artifacts of the attempts of thinkers to unravel the riddle of existence. This is one way into philosophy. It is the way of G. E. Moore. What riddled him was not the world so much as the strange things philosophers such as F. H. Bradley…

  • Acting As If

    Definitive answers to the Big Questions are beyond our ken. No one knows whether the soul is immortal, for example, and no proof is available to us either way.  There are arguments, and some are better than others. But there are no proofs. (If you have a proof, send it to me, and I will…

  • To Write Well, Read Well

    To write well, read well. Read good books, which are often, but not always, old books. If you carefully read, say, William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, you will learn something of the expository potential of the English language from a master of thought and expression. If time is short, study one of his popular essays…

  • On Writing Well: The Example of William James

    This from a graduate student in philosophy: I have always been an admirer of your philosophical writing style–both in your published works and on your blog. Have you ever blogged about which writers and books have most influenced your philosophical writing style? Yes, I have some posts on or near this topic.  What follows is…

  • A Partial Philosophical Defense of the Monastic Life

    The suggestion was made that I give a little talk to the monks of Christ in the Desert, a Benedictine monastery outside of Abiqui, New Mexico.  I thought I would offer a few words in defense of the monastic life, not that such an ancient and venerable tradition needs any defense from me, but just…

  • Overbelief and Romans 1: 18-20

    I met with S. N. in Tempe yesterday for philosophy and chess. While we were talking about overbelief, it occurred to me that Romans 1: 18-20 is another good example of overbelief.  Now there is an issue that the budding theologian S. N. made me aware of, an issue that the philosopher in me desires…

  • Unusual Experiences and the Problem of Overbelief and Underbelief

    One day, well over 30 years ago, I was deeply tormented by a swarm of negative thoughts and feelings that had arisen because of a dispute with a certain person.  Pacing around my apartment, I suddenly, without any forethought, raised my hands toward the ceiling and said, "Release me!"  It was a wholly spontaneous cri du coeur,…