Hoo

Yes, I agree. I experience the "mystic" power of these myths which are therefore "true." Because it's trans-rational or sub-rational, I abandon any so...

Good points. For context, I feared hellfire as a child/teen. Mom was religious. The old man was profane and obscene. Death as nothingness was liberati...

Yes. Rorty got me interested in Hegel. As you may know, he wanted to abandon the mirror or lens paradigm. I agree. They are profound truths. They are ...

I really don't think so. Death is huge, of course. But don't we reason with ourselves about it? I've got this candle/flame analogy. We're melting cand...

One example of metaphor would be the "mirror of nature." We can think of the philosopher as a sort of mirror or lens through which to see objective re...

I knew they were friends, but when you say 'intimate'...that would be interesting. There's also the rumor that he was a spy.

Thanks for the tip. I'll check that one out.

I think you're right. The Phen. was rushed, too, if memory serves. I've read his early theological writings. They are quite clear, quite enjoyable. He...

That poem is deep. That little mouse is something like the truth of us, we who evolved from the nocturnal thieves of reptile eggs (or that's something...

That's where Kojeve and pragmatism start to blend. The "wise man" is satisfied. He scans the completed circle of his concept system and finds no gaps,...

There's a tradition of thinking "analogy as the core of cognition." Lakoff, Norman O. Brown, Vico, and Rorty come to mind. Derrida quotes Anatole Fran...

I finished that line with "we the living" and thought about throwing in an Ayn Rand joke. The question in both cases (to me) is what to do in the abse...

I like Derrida's face. I like his vibe in interviews. I really like The White Mythology, too. (If metaphysics is metaphorical, then metaphor is metaph...

I feel you. I told myself I was going to math tonight. Philosophy is my vice, my sin. On sensation-emotion, it's probably just differing idiosyncratic...

I hear you. I'm not attached to "enlightenment" as a term. But I think we find plenty of Western notions of transcendence or the wise man. I don't kno...

Truly, I've put some real time in with Blake, though it's been awhile. It's hard to parse "misunderstanding" away from assumption that a "real" meanin...

Ah, but surely you believe that feeling and sensation are more than the concept we need to speak about them? Continuing the above, how could truth be ...

It's hard to write about in black and white with the proper irony. It may come across like some 'duty' to beauty, but really it's the abolition of dut...

I find that if I can feel my way into a thinker's worldview --itself largely shaped by the heroic role that requires this worldview as a stage -- then...

Well, hell. I'd never deny cherry-picking. That's how personalities are constructed, in my view. Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the...

I'd say look to context. You've maybe heard my spiel about "meaning by fiat." The unit of meaning is at least as big as a conversation. But maybe the ...

I get that. But how does one distinguish? That's exactly why there's a taboo against being "flaky" or superstitious. I'm really not trying to give you...

Yes, yes. If one's goal is a beautiful, joyful life, then everything is lit up by this goal. One can see various fundamental "poses" from the outside....

But for me taking them seriously more or less is being consumed by them. If you just mean that we have to step up and take care of business sometimes,...

I like holism. I can't lump the "spiritually enlightened" altogether, because maybe there is a plurality of states worth being described as "enlighten...

I don't mean to be dramatic about it, but we're talking about the same guy. I get the "prophet" vibe from Heidegger. "Only a God can save us." I'll gl...

I had Louis C. K. in mind. The best comedians laugh off the worst and most absurd aspects of life. They're also especially authentic. They convert ext...

Yes, I had a sense that I was moving against Heidegger, but that's almost to be expected. He was a Nazi. Where did he go wrong? I'm not fishing after ...

I agree. Show me the life! Beyond words there is a life actually lived, giving words weight. I don't think you're a pragmatist, but that's largely wha...

I wonder if modern civilization is in more chaos than usual, though. Perhaps in ages of less social mobility and information, there was less temptatio...

I think we more or less agree. I'm just pointing at the space outside the space of philosophy's tendency to be solemnly objective. How often do see a ...

Right. Systems aren't bad. We want our concepts to work well together. But there's a trans-propsitional irony or "feel" that is perhaps more important...

I think they're real, too, or that it's a bit silly to deny them this description. We live so much in the realm of ideas.

Does it prohibit us from bombing them in the name of our household gods? Maybe we have to distinguish between an abstract relativism and a gut-level a...

I'd say that we should look into the justification of violence. An in-group has standards for how members can treat one another. If a speaker for the ...

But one might in their defense read their narrative, non-systematic vision of the world as a different way to do philosophy-as-worldview or philosophy...

Yes, but there's some art out there that tries to express the highest feelings and insights. I get that from old religious paintings sometimes. At it'...

Lester Bangs interviewed Dick Clark once and Dick Clark called rock and roll "hamburgers and hotdogs." That's always stuck with me. Yes, Job and Eccle...

The heroic mind. Freedom, power, beauty, laughter. Who do we think we should we be? How does/did this who change? How do/did we get there, or close en...

I think I've been about a low as one can go. I would not have been lifted up by my own words. I already "knew" all that. Last time I was hit was about...

I listen to music on the bus, an otherwise dreary place. It's like a drug. Music is a drug. Some of the best lyrics, powerfully delivered, are the ide...

On the first point, I'm skeptical about an escape from an anthropomorphism-- and about the need to escape, which is human, all too human. On the secon...

Yes, indeed. I think it's the collision of common sense (bumping into objects) with a more rigorous abstract thought. Logically, there is no thing out...

Actually, I love that line. "I am the truth." Seriously, there's a Blakean or Satanic reading of the Gospels that has really influenced me. It's in Sa...

Yes, indeed. We have to make any tradition deeply our own. It's not real till we have twisted its proteins into our own. That's what I find in Jesus' ...

Yes, I agree. I call it "word-math." It sure would be nice if language worked like that for philosophers, but I don't think it works like that (or tha...

I'm very glad to see someone else contemplation self-identifications explicitly. That seems to be the skeleton key. Master words, master images, from ...

This is great. Yes, dimly understood desires, because understanding them almost requires a transition from an earnest religion of pure reason or a rig...

Well said. Though one might speak of their "deep" philosophy, which is a (joyful, stubborn) commitment to this irony, along with the ability to get th...

I like this. Irony at the center, the laughter of the gods at our solemn assertions. Exactly.