cript>

THE WORST OF TIMES, THE BEST OF TIMES

Simone Weil, 1938:
You could not have wished to be born in a better time than this, when everything has been lost.

Read more

WHY STUDY PHILOSOPHY?

Heinrich Blücher, via Hannah Arendt:
Advice to students: if you’re inclined to study philosophy, “you can do it only if you know that the most important thing in your life would be to succeed in this and the second most important thing, almost as important, to fail in precisely this.

Read more

CONFRONTING AGAIN THE QUESTION WHY DO I BLOG

Looking at the calendar, I see that yet again I’ve gone more than a week without posting something I’ve written to the blog something.

Read more

WONDERING ABOUT WONDERING

Lewis Thomas:
Wonder is a word to wonder about. It contains a mixture of messages: something marvelous and miraculous, surprising, raising unanswerable questions about itself, making the observer wonder, even raising skeptical questions like “I wonder about that.

Read more

ARENDT, KANT, AND JUDGMENT

Hannah Arendt:
He [Kant] asked: What are the conditions of our experience? Crucial for Kant is that for him, and him alone, the highest faculty of man is Judgment (and not reasoning, as for Descartes, nor the drawing of conclusions after conclusions as for Hegel.

Read more

SOCIAL INSECURITIES AND FOMO, 1954 VERSION

Mary McCarthy:
Saul Bellow was here too, with son and dog, not very friendly, either. In short, last month was rather paranoid, which got me rattled.

Read more