Category: Sage Advice
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Study Everything, Join Nothing
Do I live up to this admonition? Or am I posturing? Is my posture perhaps a slouch towards hypocrisy? Well, it depends on how broadly one takes 'join.' A while back, I joined a neighbor and some of his friends in helping him move furniture. Reasonably construed, the motto does not rule out that sort…
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Advice on Publishing From the 17th Century
Suppose you are working on an article that you plan on sending to some good journal with a high rejection rate. You know that what you have written still needs some work, but you submit it anyway in the hope of a conditional acceptance and comments with the help of which you will perfect your…
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Avoidance Always Possible
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VI, 20, Loeb Classical Library no. 58, p. 141, tr. Haines: Suppose that a competitor in the ring has gashed us with his nails and butted us violently with his head, we do not protest or take it amiss or suspect our opponent in future of foul play. Still we do keep…
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On Tipping
Here, in no particular order, are my maxims concerning the practice of tipping. 1. He who is too cheap to leave a tip in a restaurant should cook for himself. That being said, there is no legal obligation to tip, nor should there be. Is there a moral obligation? Perhaps. Rather than argue that there…
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Dissertation Advice on the Occasion of Kant’s Birthday
Immanuel Kant was born on this day in 1724. He died in 1804. My dissertation on Kant, which now lies 31 years in the past, is dated 22 April 1978. But if, per impossibile, my present self were Doktorvater to my self of 31 years ago, my doctoral thesis might not have been approved! As…
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Seneca on Leisure and Philosophy
Some say Seneca was a hypocrite. But even if it is true, even if he did not believe or practice what he preached in his voluminous writings, what would it matter when he has bequeathed to us such gems as the following? Of all men they alone are at leisure who take time for philosophy, they…
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Don’t Worry, Be Happy
The dreaded event will either occur or it will not. If it occurs, then the worrier suffers twice, once from the event, and once from the worry. If it does not occur, then the person suffers from neither. Therefore, worry is irrational.
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The Lottery Player
The lottery player, unable to think clearly about money, both overvalues and undervalues it. He overvalues it inasmuch as he thinks that a big win would be a wonderful thing even though it would probably not be, and won't occur in any case for the vast majority of players. There are plenty of examples, some…
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Word of the Day: Inconcinnity
My elite readers no doubt know this word, but I learned it just today. It means lack of suitability or congruity: INELEGANCE. 'Concinnity' is also a word. From the Latin concinnitas, from concinnus, skillfully put together, it means: harmony and often elegance of design especially of literary style in adaptation of parts to a whole or…
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Philosophy and Livelihood: Build a Slave!
One reader asks: How does an independent scholar get bread and butter on the table? Another inquires: How could one make a living in philosophy and the humanities besides being a professor?
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A Reader Wants to be a Professional Philosopher
From a reader's e-mail: "Now, I want to be a professional philosopher, period! It's not as if I kind of want to, or happened to be thinking about it." My young correspondent does not tell me what he means by 'professional philosopher,' or why he wants to attend graduate school, so I'll begin by making…
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Can You Get Through the Next Hour?
The present can always be borne – if sliced thinly enough – and it is only the present that must be borne. This aphorism of mine is in the Stoic spirit. It illustrates the Stoic method of division. Any process or procedure or undertaking which seems overwhelming or unbearable when surveyed as a whole can…
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How Not to Begin the Day
A thoroughly bad way to begin the day is by reading a newspaper. For it is not only the hands that get dirty, and the house cluttered; the mind in its early morning freshness is degraded by useless facts, polluted with badly written opinions, and suborned by seductive advertising. There is plenty of time later…