Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Life of the Mind

  • A Philosopher’s Life

    "Irving Thalberg Jr., born rich of Hollywood royalty, chose a low profile and a life of the mind." I recall reading this years ago.  Keith Burgess-Jackson, blogger buddy from way back, reminded me of it this morning.

  • Reader Asks: What Should I Read?

    Nathaniel T. writes, In the new year, I'm committing to some more regular reading habits.    What serious books would you recommend to someone outside academia who has about half an hour uninterrupted in the morning to read, three times a week? How about a list that would last that person a year?    Here…

  • Against Philosophical Dismissal

    To dismiss Hegel is as bad as to dismiss Donald Davidson. On second thought, it is far worse. For you cannot understand Marx without understanding Hegel, and you cannot understand the current culturally Marxist, 'woke' mess we are in without understanding Marx and his successors. Davidson & Co. can be safely ignored if it is…

  • Book Lust

    The old man's libido may be on the wane, but this man's book lust  remains as stiff-standing as ever.  I'm reading along in Anthony Kenny's Aquinas on Being and I find a footnote in which he praises a certain Hermann Weidemann's article contained in a certain anthology. I think, "Oh boy, when I am in…

  • A Sane Populism is not an Anti-Intellectualism

    Here is a statement that is not only extreme but also manifestly false: In fact, you could wipe society’s table clear of every writer, artist, actor, musician, professor, dancer, reporter, tastemaker, producer, influencer, teacher, lobbyist, politician, everyone on TV, everyone who doesn’t get their hands dirty, and our world would keep turning just fine.  If…

  • Circular Definitions, Arguments, and Explanations

    In the course of our discursive operations we often encounter circularity.  Clarity will be served if we distinguish different types of circularity.  I count three types.  We could label them definitional, argumentative, and explanatory. A.  The life of the mind often includes the framing of definitions.  Now one constraint on a good definition is that…

  • Benatar Defended Against a Scurrilous Attack

    In my latest Substack article I defend Benatar's courageous pursuit of the truth, not the results of said pursuit. 

  • Intellectual Hygiene

    I am all for intellectual hygiene. But it can be taken to an extreme by a certain sort of analytic philosopher who is afraid to touch anything that might in the least be infected with the murk and messiness of life as she is lived. Such types remind me of neurotic hand-washers and those who,…

  • On Profitable Study of Philosophy

    One needs to work through a text slowly, pondering, comparing, re-reading, reconstructing and evaluating the arguments, raising objections, imagining possible replies and all of this while animated by a burning need to get to the bottom of some pressing existential question.  You must bring to your reading questions if you expect study to be profitable. If one…

  • On Acquiring a Large Vocabulary

    How does one acquire a large vocabulary? The first rule is to read, read widely, and read worthwhile materials, especially old books and essays.  The second rule is to look up every word the meaning of which you do not know or are not certain of: don't be lazy. The third rule is to compile…

  • Why Write?

    I write to know my own mind, to actualize my own mind, and to attract a few like-minded and contrary-minded people.  The like-minded lend support, and the contrary-minded – assuming that their criticisms are rationally based – allow me to test my ideas.  Dialectic is to the philosopher what experiment is to the scientist.

  • A Reason to Blog

    Chary of embalming in printer's ink ideas that may be unworthy of such preservation, due perhaps to underdevelopment, or lack of originality, or some more egregious defect, the blogger satisfies his urge to scribble and publish without burdening referees and editors and typesetters, and without contributing to the devastation of forests. He publishes all right,…

  • A Mistake Many Make

    They think that what is not immediately intelligible to them is unintelligible, period, or perhaps even a product of willful obfuscation. The Australian positivist, David Stove, somewhere takes umbrage at a passage from Heidegger and pronounces it gibberish, when the passage is not gibberish at all. The miserable Stove, unwilling to to do his homework,…

  • In a Philosophical Discussion . . .

    . . . three's a crowd and four's a cross-conversation.  One-on-one, back-and-forth, defining and refining, pursuing the point, focusing like a laser, driven by eros for truth but free of polemos under the aegis of philia.  But also under the aegis of  Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas. And with no illusions about achieving agreement.…

  • Advice on Study and the Improvement of the Mind

    Reader M.L.P. inquires, I was wondering what habits one should acquire to study philosophy profitably. I read philosophy books but I tend to forget most of what I read. I also find it hard to come up with my own ideas. Roughly how many books or articles should one read in a day? Or is…