John Locke (1632-1704), in Book II of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) writes: “Our observation employed either about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected upon by ourselves, is that which supplies our… Read more ›
Many people make resolutions on New Year’s Day. It is a day of beginnings and endings and is often accompanied by faith and hope in the new. But can there ever really be a new beginning? Well, resolutions are often… Read more ›
St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-394), in his work On the Soul and Resurrection (St. Vladmir’s Seminary Press, 1993), presents a very stimulating dialogue between two characters: Gregory and his sister Macrina. Through Macrina he argues that the existence of virtue… Read more ›
Plato, in his dialogue Phaedo, has Socrates refer to philosophy as “the practice of death”. In the dialogue, this practice is presented as one in which the philosopher tries to remove herself from the seductions of the sensible world in… Read more ›
What is the relation between logos (speech, reason) and eros (love)? Some say there is no relation since love is just a matter of emotions, feelings, passions, and actions. But according to Plato’s developmental vision of eros encountered in his… Read more ›
Plato’s (427-347 B.C.) Republic is primarily a book, despite its many themes and topics, about justice in the soul and the state. Socrates’ analysis of justice is undertaken to justify the claim that we should all be virtuous even if we… Read more ›
The beautiful colors of Spring have emerged yet again from the seemingly endless days of white, gray, brown, and black. The once frozen ground and mutilated remnants were concealing hidden folds of life waiting to unfold. According to the enlightenment… Read more ›
In Plato’s Symposium we learn that love is the desire for the continued possession of the Good (206a-b) and that the Good is ultimately eternal Being that is timeless and always “the same in every way” (208b). Thus the goal… Read more ›
Judge William and Johannes the Seducer are two fictional characters created by the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) in his book Either/Or. The Judge, representing an ethical way of life and love, argues that love, if it is to be… Read more ›
How is it that we can experience incoming data from the five senses as coherent, rather than incoherent, perceptions of objects and people? This issue, often referred to as “the binding problem” in neuroscience, has been a concern of philosophers… Read more ›
The Intrigue by James Ensor, 1890 It makes a lot of sense to maintain that the emotions we experience in the presence of art are very different from the emotions we experience in non-aesthetic contexts. We may feel fear, sadness, or happiness… Read more ›
In Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus there is an interesting exchange between Theuth, the old God who invented writing, and King Thamus, the man who is critical of it: “But when it came to writing, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians… Read more ›
In his essay “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings” William James (1842-1910) argues that our ideals and ideas are intimately associated with our feelings. This can be a good thing since feelings both enable our ideas about things to… Read more ›
In previous posts we have seen ways in which Eros (love) can imply, lead to, or be thwarted by Thanatos (death). Here is yet another example of a dynamic relation between the two from Alfred North Whitehead. In his book… Read more ›
In the last post, I considered how Shakespeare’s Richard III can be used to illustrate five stages of tyranny in politics. Now let’s look at how the play, on the one hand, illustrates four forms of evil, namely, demonic, instrumental,… Read more ›