Category: Obituaries
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Another ‘Too Late’ Story: Elizabeth Wolgast
Long-time reader Dave Bagwill wrote to tell me that he tried to contact his old professor at Cal State, Hayward, Elizabeth Wolgast, but was too late. "She was a very fine woman with a penetrating intellect and a warm heart," Dave recalls. From Wolgast's obituary: Elizabeth H. WolgastFeb 27, 1929 – Oct 13, 2020Elizabeth Wolgast,…
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In Praise of a Lowly Adjunct
The entry below was written on 18 May 2009 and posted the same day. I had meant to send it to Dr. Loretta Morris, Richard's widow, but couldn't find her e-mail address. The other day I discovered her obituary. So here is another case of too late again. …………………………………. The best undergraduate philosophy teacher I…
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Too Late Again!
Every once in while I will get the notion to send 'fan mail' to a philosopher whose work I am reading and for whose work I am grateful. But I am sometimes too late. The search for an e-mail address turns up an obituary. The last time this occurred was when I wanted to congratulate…
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Whatever Happened to Steven Den Beste?
Old-time blogospherians will remember Den Beste and his U.S.S. Clueless. I hadn't thought about him in years, but then something triggered my memory. Long story short, he died the death in 2016.
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Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
I sometimes express skepticism about the value of the study of history. If history has lessons, they don't seem applicable to the present in any useful way. But there is no denying that history is a rich source of exemplary lives. These exemplary lives show what is humanly possible and furnish existential ideals. Helmuth James…
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Reading Now: Alfred Delp, S. J., Prison Writings
From Thomas Merton's October 1962 introduction: These are the thoughts of a man who, caught in a well-laid trap of political lies, clung desperately to a truth that was revealed to him in solitude, helplessness, emptiness, and desperation. Face to face with inescapable physical death, he reached out in anguish for the truth without which…
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Remembering Bob Koepp
Robert V. Koepp, long-time commenter at this weblog, died on Leap Day, 2012. Here is what I had to say about him in 2012.
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Scruton Quits the Sublunary
Sir Roger's earthy tenure lasted a mere 75 years. Philosophy is an old man's game, as I heard it said in my youth; Sir Roger fell short of the Russellian by 22 years. Steven Hayward of Powerline: In the introduction to his book The Meaning of Conservatism, Scruton writes that “Conservatism may rarely announce itself…
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Mary Warnock Obituary
Here
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Too Late by Five Months! Remembering Robert C. Coburn
This morning I happened to re-read the chapter "Metaphysical Theology and the Life of Faith" in Robert C. Coburn's, The Strangeness of the Ordinary (Rowman and Littlefield, 1990). I first read it in May of 1997. I was so impressed with it this second time around that I resolved to send Professor Coburn a note…
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Robert Spaemann Dies at 91
Professor Robert Spaemann, Philosopher and Advocate of the Traditional Mass, Dies at 91. (HT: Kai Frederik Lorentzen) See also, Philosophie und Glaube: Vom Tod von Robert Spaemann. Excerpt: Gott als Grundlage aller Wahrheitsansprüche Gottesglaube ist weder Bedingung für wahre Urteile noch für Gewissensüberzeugungen. Aber da die Existenz Gottes der ontologische Grund beider und in ihnen…
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Mary Midgley (1919 – 2018)
The Guardian reports, Mary Midgley, who has died aged 99, was an important writer on ethics, the relations of humans and animals, our tendency to misconstrue science, and the role of myth and poetry. Read it all. The Telegraph obituary, behind a paywall, begins: Mary Midgley, who has died aged 99, was one of Britain’s…
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John Fund on John McCain
The late Senator McCain is largely deserving of the encomia he has received. But there has also been a sizable admixture of gush and mush to which John Fund offers a measured response.
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Charles Krauthammer (1950 – 2018)
I cited him often over the years and disagreed with him only once. I admired his penetrating intellect, but more importantly his good judgment. In his personal life he was a profile in courage. He was a major contributor to the high quality of Fox commentary. On the debit side, he was perhaps too much…
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Hugh Hefner Dead at 91
There is so much to say. For now, just this: If you have devoted your whole soul to the enjoyment and promotion of the pleasures of the flesh, then you had better hope that the soul dissolves with the dissolution of the body. Contemporaries will think that of course it does, but it is not…