Ciceronianus

I'm uncertain how the existence of future people can be continued. The existence of people now living, though, may be discontinued through the use con...

Hey, wait a minute. Is the title to this thread playing off of Orwell's Homage to Catalonia? Or is it a reference to the cheese makers of Catalonia, o...

Hefner and Playboy may have been remarkable in the 1950s, but were antiquated by the late 1960s. Which is not to say that pictures of nude or nearly n...

Some years ago, I had a heart attack. I was exercising at a YMCA at the time it began, which made it seem strangely inappropriate, not to say unfair. ...

It's an imaginary friend of certain philosophers, and, like other imaginary friends, may be part of a process by which they're reconciled to the munda...

Thank you, m'lady. I have a mind that attaches itself to odds and ends, including the poetry that can be encountered in popular songs, especially thos...

The rest of it is: Wherever I may roam, on land or sea or foam, you'll always hear me singing this song, show me the way to go home."

What does Ciceronianus say whenever Ayn Rand is mentioned? "Ayn Rand is to philosophy what L. Ron Hubbard is to religion."

A kid'll eat ivy too; wouldn't you? Sorry I missed this before. And now: "Hut-Sut Rawlson on the Rillarah and..." It's interesting how great events, l...

Fortunately a real jury of scientists would be bound by jury instructions providing them with a definition of "intent" for legal purposes which, if th...

I tend to think the concept of Being has no significance whatsoever, frankly, except in the history of philosophy, and as an object lesson in the dang...

Well, I like being silly now and then. More seriously regarding "Being," if the question being asked is "Why is there something rather than nothing?" ...

Ah, but the most important question is whether Being beings, as Heidegger said the Nothing nothings. If Being doesn't being, and the Nothing nothings,...

I know Augustine wrote he once heard a voice telling him to "take up and read," but doubt I'd react as he did if I were to do so. And I have, in fact,...

Quid est veritas? Pontius Pilatus had a point, though it's not one he intended to make, I think. To answer your question or any such questions I'd hav...

If it's maintained that the Enlightenment is especially "bad" it's entirely appropriate to respond that there's nothing especially bad about it. I dou...

But science, of course, isn't a being at all, you see, So it makes no sense to think of it as innocent, or for that matter guilty. It's something we d...

Well, not a very good case, I think. We're the cause of the problems which afflict us, not science or technology. The Enlightenment can't be blamed fo...

If you would but consider that your belief that we were promised that the Enlightenment/modernity would establish heaven on Earth is mistaken, you mig...

No, I think it's mostly about your satisfaction. The things you think important have not been resolved, alas. I wouldn't expect postmodernism to resol...

In a sense it does, as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, a kind of ghost of the Empire. And otherwise, in the civil law of most European c...

Your selection of what you consider to be unresolved is interesting. I'm not certain those questions/issues will ever be resolved to the satisfaction ...

Thanks, I didn't know that. it's supposed to be James' finest work, but I haven't read it (yet).

I think it's more accurate to say that the Classical Pragmatists were unaware of Wittgenstein. Peirce died in 1914, James in 1910. There would be no r...

The understanding that to desire or disturb myself with what is beyond my control serves only to make me subject to others, and unhappy.

My brain is telling me that this is a difference that makes no difference (it apologizes for paraphrasing William "Wild Bill James" who Mr. Spock was ...

Is this still about statuary? I wonder why Lee is so venerated, myself, as he arguably lost the war by invading the North and committing his army to b...

Well, I was being silly, you know. No serious assertion, or for that matter question, was intended. But it strikes me that if one is "satisfied" with ...

The problem lies in assuming that a question is being posed. It's actually an assertion. It's not "what is the meaning of life?" It's: "The meaning of...

No. Nor do they have the "right" to be happy.

We're a part of the universe, but only a very small part. Our concerns are largely selfish; what we can do is limited. Our knowledge of the rest of th...

Is it? I had the impression the OP was referring to human life, i.e. what we as the "self-awareness" or "mind" of the universe exist to do. Be that as...

If you say so. In fact, I have no objection to having as a goal understanding all we can about the universe. But it's a goal only, albeit a worthy one...

There is no problem. I'm convulsed with joy that he's done so. Nonetheless, if we're the mind of the universe, the universe is diminished.

It must be very disappointed, then, to find it has such a mind.

Well, I suppose: Schubert's String Quartet No. 14, Death and the Maiden Any of Beethoven's Late String Quartets, op. 131 if I must chose one of them B...

Well, our computers, etc., will be garbage some day as well then. They're disposed of on Earth, for the most part. You seem relatively indifferent abo...

Just how the law will handle identity issues of the kind which seem to be arising, e.g., of "I have certain genitalia but identify as a person who nor...

Is the probe garbage? Why, I wonder. It would seem our computers, laptops, etc. would just as well be garbage. Stop using them and other such things i...

Well, you at least understand what Power-mad Paul-Michel thought about it, in any case.

I can only speculate, but as his colleague Burris was praetorian prefect and so presumably was aware of what the only substantial military force in th...

As far as Roman paganism is concerned (and it wasn't at all homogeneous in the first century CE), I think that the Stoics, along with most philosopher...

Well, it's Lloyd. Lloyd the bartender, from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (I won't say Stephen King's as it seems he thought the movie had little to d...

Silence is consent, you know. Qui tacet consentire videtur. So, the fact that the unborn silently accept their birth indicates they consent to their b...

I think the "nitpicking" you refer to is essential to intelligent judgment in placing blame and in assessing harm. Those who delight in pontificating ...

Are you referring to a "wrongful birth" action? That's in the nature of medical malpractice; the duty breached is that of the physician to the parents...

It is unreasonable, at best, because there is no person, or people, who don't exist. There is no person whose consent should be obtained, nor is there...

Where consent isn't possible, it's unreasonable, to say the least, to insist that it must be given.

Who's speaking of womanizers? Nietzsche would make Ward Cleaver seem like Don Juan.

Frantic Freddie never had much luck with women. His sister in particular. Perhaps he was referring to self-flagellation.