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 ›
A theodicy is an attempt to justify God’s attributes (usually all knowing, all good, and all powerful) in the face of evil. One way to justify God in the face of evil is to claim that evil is actually orchestrated… 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 ›
Shakespeare’s Richard III, although fairly simple in structure, is rich in philosophical insights. In this series of posts I will explore many of these insights. Let’s begin by looking at how the play illustrates stages of tyranny that can be… Read more ›
An ideal many philosophers have pursued is a belief system characterized by logical consistency. Such a belief system, far from being just an objective goal existing apart from the self, would be integral, if not identical, to the self. In… Read more ›
In the last three posts I have considered Plato’s argument for the immortality of the soul in book X of his dialogue the Republic. I would like to finish this series with a look at one attempt to present a… Read more ›
In the last two posts I considered Plato’s argument for the immortality of the soul that appears in book X of his dialogue Republic. Now I would like to say a few words about how the theme of immortality can… Read more ›
In the last post I introduced Plato’s argument for the immortality of the soul in Book X of his dialogue Republic (all quotations will be from Cornford’s translation). I then discussed the argument’s central claim – the essential destructibility claim –… Read more ›
The intellectual and dramatic flow of Plato’s dialogue Republic is driven by Socrates’ attempt to show what justice is and why being just is superior to being unjust. A character, Glaucon, presents a challenge to Socrates in Book II: why… Read more ›
There is an interesting contrast between Aristotle and Friedrich Nietzsche when it comes to the notion of a good man and whether such a man should change and despise himself. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, writes that the good man… Read more ›
The new version of the show Cosmos, like the old version, shows many cases of mistaken astrological thinking being replaced by empirically verified astronomical evidence. For many people these advances are welcome. Certainly those who think scientifically will not accept… Read more ›
In his book The Wanderer and His Shadow (aphorism #204), Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “End and Goal: Not every end is a goal. The end of a melody is not its goal; but nonetheless, if the melody had not reached its… Read more ›