The “effortless flow” aspect of my piece is due simply to knowing how to speak—and therefore write—simply and effectively. I acquired this ability by ...
Socrates is dead. He died in 399 BC. No doubt there is nothing left of him, not even his bones, which must have turned to powdery dust a long time ago...
Men who died centuries ago still live for me; and, though lame, I can walk and run and gambol in the Elysian Fields with many a “dead” immortal soul: ...
Sleep is death-in-life. Babies do so much of it because they have only recently emerged from nonexistence; old ppl do it so much because they are rehe...
. A resolution is a decision to do something, not just a wish or desire. Indeed, more than just that, it is a FIRM decision: when one says, “I am reso...
@"Primperan" I would have included Navalny among the brave dissidents you mentioned; a true patriot, willing to risk his very life for a free Russia. ...
Brilliant analysis! Best I’ve read in here yet: the author takes the mod note to my story as an exemplar, and modifies it to exactly describe the cliq...
@"praxis" An afterthought: an internet relationship with a person compared with a real-life one is a good analogy to having a real book under your han...
@"praxis" To me, that book was not “an old dictionary”, but rather “an old friend”. Whenever I went to the library to seek it out for help, there it w...
BBC INTERVIEW WITH LEGHORN, CONTROVERSIAL TPF AUTHOR Reporter: Thank you for granting us this exclusive interview, Leghorn. Leghorn: You’re welcome. R...
But that is not how a pen is mighty, Merky, as you well know. It’s because swords can only destroy individual bodies, whereas writings can transform c...
Good conscience? The conscience of a guy who posted his own “story” without recognizing that it isn’t of enough words to qualify for the contest?? So,...
But that’s exactly what I did Seppers: I wrote a story that contained a lot of that sort of stuff: racist/sexist/homophobic sorta stuff... ...now I se...
Isn’t this a summary of the judicial philosophy of the Supreme Court of the United States of America?... but the members of that court have no individ...
What has interested you in the past, John? Yet it apparently fails to interest you now: do you have any idea why? How do you intend on going about fin...
How do you square that with the classic line, “The pen is mightier than the sword”? because written words are more potent than spoken ones? as in the ...
@"Mp202020" Actually, there is much relevance of sports to philosophy. Right now as I speak there is a debate going in American football about the “fa...
Do you mean the pre-Socratics? or rather Homer and Herodotus and the play-writes?...or both? and do you mean in translation or in the original? Do you...
Wouldn’t a virtuous person follow moral rules and therefore do things that result in morally correct actions? Your trinity seems to me to really be a ...
@"Banno" Well, I must admit that your categories are a bit perplexing, especially deontology: the study of the advantageous or needful (?). Also, it s...
So how would you consider the obesity example? Ought one to avoid obesity in order not to corrupt his children’s health, damage his friends’ furniture...
Well, ole Merkywurdy! Haven’t seen your name pop up in here in a long time. I assumed you had gotten yourself banned. I wouldn’t be surprised if you k...
@"john27" According to the ancient philosophers, the human soul is divided between reason and the passions. It is said to be an “economy” because they...
Let’s parse this statement: “The application of reason takes effort—a will or a want to overcome.” Are you aware of the ancient “economy of the soul”?...
@"john27" Would you say then that this sentiment you expressed earlier in the discussion... ...is far beyond you now—now that you perceive that a huma...
This is the premise, isn’t it?: This is my experience too—for the most part: most ppl read what they want to hear. But I am also aware that there are ...
Just finished Voltaire’s Candide (Adams edition). This paragraph made me think of this forum so well, I thought I would reproduce it here: “While Cand...
Unlike the rest of nature, dear John, a human being can transform him- or her-self into a different creature through the use and force of reason. Afte...
Let me express it a bit more picturesquely... ...Some ppl feel they have lost their very selves when they lose their hair, or their money, or their jo...
@"john27" Do you see any similarity, John, between the different sorts of objects that fall through the atmosphere and the sorts of ppl that endure lo...
The mathematical equation for an object in free fall is: distance=1/2 of acceleration times time squared, isn’t it? If drag is an essential component ...
@"john27" Isn’t it true, John, that if we were to investigate the laws that govern falling bodies, we would do better to observe the heavier ones and ...
But we were talking about bodies falling through the air, weren’t we? That’s why you agreed earlier that a rock would hit the ground before a feather ...
If that were true, the rock and feather would both hit the ground at the same time after being dropped at the same moment from the same height, wouldn...
@"john27" And which of these: the rock or ball-bearing or lead-weight, or rather the feather, do you think conforms most closely to the accepted formu...
@"john27" Isn’t it true that a rock or steel ball-bearing or lead weight dropped at the same moment as any feather would hit the ground before the fea...
@"john27" So if I’m understanding you John, first we drop feathers of different sorts, measure velocities and calculate accelerations and come up with...
Rocks? Why rocks? Are they the average material that things are made of? Why not foam or feathers? Are they not equally representative of falling bodi...
So if we wanted to understand falling bodies, for example, we should take a bunch of representative examples of common everyday things, maybe differen...
The future of immortality lies not in corruptible flesh, but in the incorruptible hard substances of the android. The android will incorporate an arti...
@"john27" Well, Stilbon the philosopher was a flesh-and-blood man, just like you and me, John. There are many other similar examples from the past of ...
If we are to take ancient writings in the original seriously at all, we have to assume that we can both understand them, and that there is a common hu...
@"john27" “Demetrius , whose nickname was Poliorcetes , had taken Megara . When Stilbon the philosopher was asked by him whether he had lost anything,...
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