Thoughts of past weakness are weakening thoughts. Don't entertain them.
Category: Sage Advice
A Rule of Engagement with Females
Accept and return hugs, but do not initiate them. Exception: family members. Joe Biden take note.
Let it Go!
Why are you recalling an unpleasant event when everyone else involved has forgotten — not only it, but you?
My Approach to Study and Writing
A reader inquires,
A question. It seems I hit a wall every year or so in my intellectual life which involves uncertainty about what books/essays to read next, what subject matter to systematically pursue, what to reread and review (review is all too important). Now I know everyone is different, but could you share your approach to study during the week/month? Do you have a review day once a week? Do you have both a long-term project and a short term one going at the same time? Sorry if you’ve answered this in a post before, you may refer me to it.
I do have a long-term project, namely, a book I am trying to finish. The subject matter is extremely difficult and technical and so the going is slow. I am perhaps perversely attracted to the nastiest and toughest problems there are, problems that tax my poor pate to its paltry limits. I work on the book a little each day. And then I have a number of short-term projects going at the same time. One is a review article I have been invited to write, and another is an invited contribution to a collection of essays that must be submitted by January 1st. And then there is my pursuit of all sorts of other questions via blogging. On top of that 'culture war' activities: Blasting away day by day against the insanity of the destructive Left. The Kavanaugh proceedings galvanized me and 'inspired' me to bring the fight into the belly of the beast, Zuck's Facebook. I can't sit back and only think about God and the soul, time and existence, while my beloved country is destroyed by liberal-left filth.
You ask about review. Blogging helps with this. You shouldn't read serious material if you are not willing to study it, and there is little point in studying it if you don't take notes, assemble them into a coherent commentary, and evaluate what the author is maintaining, taking on board what is useful to you. For example, I have written series of posts on books by Benatar, Nagel, Plantinga, and others. These posts are available for review and cannibalization. The book I am writing will have a chapter on death. Some of the material from the Benatar posts will find its way into it.
Above all you need a direction and a definite focus. What is it that most concerns you that you want to understand? What is the cynosure of your interest? The nature of disagreement? The rationality/irrationality of religious belief? The foundation of morality? The nature of the political? Mind's place in nature? In Aristotelian terms, you need a 'final cause' of your inquiries, a unifying telos lest you spread yourself too thin and scatter your energies — as I am wont to do.
Related:
Peter Suber, Taking Notes on Philosophical Texts
Studiousness as Prophylaxis Against the Debilities of Old Age
Desideratum
Cultivate a critical openness.
William James on Self-Denial
Few preach self-denial anymore. We have become a nation of moral wimps. We need a taste of the strenuosity of yesteryear, and who better to serve it up than our very own William James, he of the Golden Age of American philosophy:
Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him a return. But, if the fire does come, his having paid it will be his salvation from ruin. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.
We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, "I won't count this time!" Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. (Principles of Psychology, vol. 1)
At James' door we receive bread. At Quine's a stone. How American philosophy has fallen off since the Golden Age of James, Royce, and Peirce!
Believing on Insufficient Evidence
The notion that we should always and everywhere apportion belief to evidence in such a way that we affirm only that for which we have sufficient evidence ignores the fact that belief for beings like us subserves action. If one acted only on those beliefs for which one had sufficient evidence one would not act as one must to live well.
When a young person believes that he or she can do such-and-such, it is almost always on the basis of insufficient evidence. And yet such belief beyond the evidence is a sine qua non of success. There are two necessary conditions of success in life: one must believe that what one proposes to do is worth doing, and one must believe that one is capable of doing it. In both cases one believes and acts on evidence that could hardly be called sufficient.
This strikes me as a good maxim: Don't let insufficient evidence prevent you from believing what you are better off believing than not believing.
For a detailed discussion of what is behind the above remarks, see The Pragmatic and the Evidential: Is it Ever Rational to Believe Beyond the Evidence?
Beware of Projecting . . .
. . . your values and attitudes into others. We are not all the same 'deep down,' and we don't all want the same things. You say you value peace and social harmony? So do I. But some are bellicose right out of the box. They love war and thrive on conflict, and not just verbally.
Liberal 'projectionism' — to give it a name — can get your irenic ass killed.
Never Buy a Book You Haven’t Read
Wisdom and wit with a soupçon of paradox.
How Much Logic Do I Need?
A reader who reports that his main interest is in contemporary metaphysics inquires:
Should I learn as much logic as humanly possible during my PhD? Or should I learn only what I need along the way? I have a basic grasp of symbolic and predicate logic, but little meta-logic.
First of all, it makes no sense to oppose symbolic to predicate logic. Modern symbolic logic includes both propositional logic and predicate logic.
Second, learn what you need as you go along. For example, existence is one of the central topics in metaphysica generalis. To work on this topic in an informed way you have to understand the modern quantificational treatment of existence in mathematical logic.
Here is the minimum required for doing metaphysics. First, a thorough grounding in traditional formal logic including the Aristotelian syllogistic. Second, modern symbolic logic including the propositional calculus and first-order predicate logic with identity. Third, some familiarity with axiomatics and the concepts of metalogic including consistency and completeness of axiom systems. Fourth, axiomatic set theory. Fifth, some (alethic) modal logic both propositional and quantified.
The best way to master these subjects, or at least the first two mentioned, is by teaching them to undergraduates.
Of MInd and its Agitation
When the mind is agitated, meditate on its agitation to quiet it. When the mind is quiescent, do not analyze its quiescence lest one agitate it.
What, Me Worry?
The evil event will either occur or it will not. If it occurs, and one worries beforehand, then one suffers twice, from the event and from the worry. If the evil event does not occur, and one worries beforehand, one suffers once, but needlessly. If the event does not occur, and one does not worry beforehand, then one suffers not at all. Therefore, worry is irrational. Don't worry, be happy.
Am I saying that that one ought not take reasonable precautions and exercise what is pleonastically called 'due diligence'? Of course not. Rational concern is not worry. I never drive without my seat belt fastened. Never! But I have never been in an accident and I never worry about it. And if one day it happens, I will suffer only once: from the accident.
Worry is a worthless emotion, a wastebasket emotion. So self-apply some cognitive therapy and send it packing. You say you can't help but worry? Then I say you are making no attempt to get your mind under control. It's your mind, control it! It's within your power. Suppose what I have just said is false. No matter: it is useful to believe it. The proof is in the pragmatics.
Seeking a Mate?
Better a loving heart than super smart.
Troubled
Troubled people are often trouble. Do you need more? Avoid the troubled, avoid trouble.
Perfectionism
Some, of modest ability, publish too much; others, of greater ability, are stymied by perfectionism.
Perfectionism is a curse!
Leave perfection to the gods. The most that can be asked of a mortal is that he strive for excellence within the limits of time, talent, and circumstance. Striving is not achieving, and excellence is not perfection.
You will never get to the point where you have read all the literature on a topic, even a well-defined one. Some of the material is out of print or otherwise unavailable, some of it is in foreign languages. Should you hold off on writing something about mereology until you can read Polish?
Too much reading blocks the channels of one's own creativity. Forever reading, never read.
Writing is the best way of working out your ideas; so if you wait until you know exactly what you want to say before writing, you will miss the best way of determining exactly what you want to say.