Ciceronianus

Well, I don't know the "traditional theistic reader" comes to the same conclusions as de Chardin or Barth (for example). I'm inclined to think that if...

Well, I wouldn't call them atrocities. I'd call the former preposterous, the latter annoying and hectoring. I'm not an atheist, by the way, though my ...

So, Christianity portrays Jesus as an archetype? I don't think so. You see, this is my point. I'm quite certain that Christian philosophers theologian...

What's called the Gospel of John was the last of the Gospels written, by my understanding, and likely was written after the death of Paul. It's only i...

It's remarkable, no doubt about it. What it's "achieved" is amazing. It's success is in part, I think, due to its tendency to assimilate so well. It a...

Bad for the teeth, though.

I dunno. I ate all those special hosts and they never did me any good. Brownies would be tastier, though.

Gosh. That's not how his name is spelled, is it?

Clearly the nomination is, and always has been politically motivated. As to whether it's racist, let's be daring and innovative, and consult dictionar...

There are enough philosophers who pontificate regarding Nothing to make up a school if not a branch. Will that do? Let's call it "Noughtism" or "Nough...

Well, there are a lot more of us than there are of them, and we all have guns.

Heidegger thought the Holocaust was like modern industrialized agriculture, and people adore him. Free Whoopi! Just can't miss a chance to excoriate H...

Speaking of American legal realism, this is how we do the law in our Glorious Republic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AuCgkBmag4

Here's another idiom, meaning much the same as the one about sucking eggs: You would teach your grandmother to milk ducks. Even better, and less commo...

You would teach your grandmother to suck eggs, I see. That's an actual idiom, by the way, though it's peculiar enough to please me, so try not to take...

Perfidious Albion, the Holocaust, European guilt, the bizarre and deadly belief in a divinely bestowed homeland which hasn't been a homeland since Had...

The law isn't quite the wacky, unprincipled, standardless, unpredictable, haphazard, amoral or incoherent system you may think it to be, intent on fin...

I've been in front of many judges. The terrible truth is that they're just lawyers who get to wear black robes and sit on chairs placed higher that th...

Yes, that's true. And as for the French Revolution, the Terror followed it, and eventually Napoleon. This suggests a community is incapable of promoti...

I think a community can, as a community, as a nation, assert its commitment to the freedom of all its members/citizens. The U.S. does that and has don...

Mmmmm. Laphroaig. It's so smokey.

That's well put. I wish I had thought of it. Augustine, having conceived (a nice way to put it, I believe) Original Sin, had to find a less obviously ...

Indeed you don't. Yet it seems you do.

Perhaps a community which fosters a desire for it, instead. Free from, would make more sense than free with, I think. I find it hard to conceive of a ...

He was a despicable little man, wasn't he? Still, hardly the first 35 year old eager to jump on an 18 year old, and perhaps her being Jewish made the ...

Well, perhaps something more than uncomely. I don't find him interesting, I'm afraid. I confess I find it very hard to read his work--his student, the...

As the character played by the incomparable Strother Martin in Cool Hand Luke said (the Captain?), what we have here, is failure to communicate. Not o...

Not much significance at all. It's more a concern for those who desire or disturb themselves over things or matters which aren't in their control.

I rejoice in any criticism of Heidegger, but frankly wish he had spent far more time "in conversation with himself" than he did.

I'm under the impression that she speaks of "individual freedom" or "inner freedom" as if it's a kind of "sovereignty" over oneself, which it would se...

Dualism has plagued us for centuries. I doubt there has been any greater source of philosophical futility.

I have a fondness for Stoicism, and think there are things which are in our control in significant respects. In these dark times, I think of Montaigne...

I confess I don't understand why she claims that freedom is identified with sovereignty to begin with, except to the extent she does so for rhetorical...

It's interesting that Mill subsequently (after the adoption of the Reform Act of 1832, supported by the Philosophical Radicals) argued in favor of plu...

Well, she was Heidegger's lover, poor woman. It's not surprising she wondered how she could go on, after that. It must have been a struggle.

Clearly, I'll have to listen to this. But in reading (not all that much, really) about Hermes Trismegistus and works attributed to him, it seems they'...

I don't think I understand you. Are you saying I don't have the right to speak freely unless you give it to me?

Ever read Tom Wolfe's article Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's? It's about a party Leonard Bernstein held for the Black Panthers in 1970. Bernstein...

I don't think you give me a right, though. You allow me to use it; my use is contingent on your consent. I have no right I can exercise regardless of ...

I think it quite possible to determine what we, and others, should or should not do without recourse to the concept of "rights." And I think one is ab...

I know I repeat myself, but what the hell, that's what we all do, especially here. There are no rights but legal rights, e.g. rights having the sancti...

Philosophers (and others) have, however, dreamed throughout history of a possible "benevolent despot" who would control the "common herd," guide us an...

I confess to nostalgia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAHJCPoWCC8

If it's death itself that disturbs you, I think you should consider what it is about death you find disturbing. You already know you will die, and tha...

An individual pursuit in the sense of a way of living, as a life of virtue would be? That I can understand.

Yes, behavior. Our behavior involves others, necessarily. Behavior in accordance with nature--the rational selection of things according to nature--ac...

I suppose I shouldn't reject that work out of hand, never having read it, much though I find her objectionable. But if I do so some here may demand th...

I appreciate the references. I fear our ability to understand the ancient world in many respects, especially regarding religious and spiritual conside...

I haven't read the work you referred to earlier. I read her fiction, and The Virtue of Selfishness, and some other odds and ends. My understanding and...

Oh, I will. It's true I'm not fond of Rand. I'm not particularly fond of Frantic Freddie (as I like to call him) either, by the way. I read a good dea...