Wall Street Journal art critic Terry Teachout asks: “Are our brains big enough to untangle modern art?” As examples, Teachout quotes one of thousands of sentences from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake like this one: “It is the circumconversioning of antelithual paganelles by a huggerknut cramwell energuman, or the caecodedition of an absquelitteris puttagonnianne to the […]
Is modern art too complicated for us? Read More »
Friedrich Nietzsche“From High Mountains: Aftersong” O noon of life! O time to celebrate!O summer garden!Restlessly happy and expectant, standing,Watching all day and night, for friends I wait: Where are you, friends? Come! It is time! It’s late! The glacier’s gray adorned itself for youToday with roses,The brook seeks you, and full of longing risesThe wind,
Nietzsche’s poem “From High Mountains” Read More »
Hardin is one of the most widely-read twentieth-century intellectuals, most known for his two pieces “The Tragedy of the Commons” and “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor.” The two are intimately related, as one diagnoses a fundamental problem with resources and the other draws policy conclusions. A key quotation, in which Hardin states
Garrett Hardin bemoaning India’s 600 million population in 1974 Read More »
At a meeting of the college faculty, an angel suddenly appears and tells the head of the philosophy department, “I will grant you whichever of three blessings you choose: Wisdom, Beauty — or ten million dollars.” Immediately, the professor chooses Wisdom. There is a flash of lightning, and the professor appears transformed — but he
Philosophy humor — The nature of wisdom Read More »
I posted a comment about British culture, saying that it’s 80% based on Greco-Roman values – in response to a line from Nigel Farage saying “everything in our country and culture is based on Judeo-Christian values.” I got pushback. Even from Britons. So let’s plunge into a spot of cultural anthropology and history: One knows
Let me now teach the British what their culture is Read More »
Following up on “The constant decline of civilization?” — a series of quotations from across the centuries of intellectuals from Plato to Wordsworth to T.S. Eliot bemoaning the sorry state of their generation’s intellectual and moral life. Here, from a review of Mark Lilla’s The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics and Richard Wolin’s Heidegger’s Children:
Are we declining from our decline? Read More »
Update: Here’s a recording of the program: https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1YqKDggpBewxV?t=22cr0LD1hY9KAKBqVae_ag&s=08 Tomorrow: My webinar evaluating Javier Milei’s presidency at six months.
Evaluating Javier Milei’s presidency at six months Read More »
In his essay “To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” Kant wrote that “the spirit of commerce, which is incompatible with war, sooner or later gains the upper hand in every state.” Yet Kant was not a friend of the spirit of commerce, which he associated with the Jews, whom he despised as “immoral and vile”
Is commerce rendering war obsolete? Read More »