Category: Life of the Mind
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On Taking One’s Time in Philosophy
Both Brentano and Wittgenstein advise philosophers to take their time. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value (University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 80: Der Gruss der Philosophen unter einander sollte sein: "Lass Dir Zeit!" This is how philosophers should greet one another: "Take your time!" A similar thought is to be found in Franz Brentano, though I have…
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Do I Repeat Myself?
Repetitio est mater studiorum.
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Ambiguity, Vagueness, Generality, Disambiguation
Top o' the Stack Some distinctions needed for intellectual hygiene.
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Alan Dershowitz, Thomas Nagel, and David Benatar
What do they have in common? Top o' the Stack.
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Generalizations are the Offspring of Wisdom
People foolishly oppose generalization. One often hears, 'Never generalize!' But that itself is a generalization in the imperative mood. The partisan of brute particularity who so opines is hoist by his own petard. So it was with pleasure that I heard Dennis Prager one day remark that "Generalizations are the mother of wisdom." But my…
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Why Do We Front Our Ideas?
"Preaching to the choir is unnecessary, and if you were to attain the age of a Methuselah you would still not be near converting your opponents. So what's the use of your arguing and asserting?" This is a text-book example of a False Alternative. For there is a third reason to argue and assert, namely,…
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Political Argumentation and Political Evolution
Top o' the Stack. Written in May 2016 but still relevant. I defend the cogency of the 'Hillary is worse' defense of Donald Trump against Charles Murray. In the January 2004 post scriptum I concede that the impressive 'Jacques,' an untenured Canadian philosopher whose name I cannot reveal because of vicious leftists such as Brian…
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On Hairsplitting
Substack latest. The charge is brought by anti-intellectuals, too many of them conservatives.
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Thomas Mann on Blogging
Thomas Mann: Diaries 1918-1939 (Abrams, 1982, tr. R & C Winston), p. 194: I love this process by which each passing day is captured, not only in its impressions, but also, at least by suggestion, its intellectual direction and content as well, less for the purpose of rereading and remembering than for taking stock, reviewing, maintaining…
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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…
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A Little Learning
by Alexander Pope A little learning is a dangerous thing ;Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,And drinking largely sobers us again.Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts ;While from the bounded level of our mindShort views we take,…
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Why Am I So Happy?
Top o' the Stack.
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Is Graduate School Really That Bad?
Top of the Stack.
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On Independent Thinking
Substack latest.