Tahitians appear to have served the same intellectual purpose for Diderot that they did for Gauguin a century later. The “primitive” is unpolluted, not constrained by the social, economic and political structures of civilized society, and would be a possible space for building if not for its contamination and domination by plunderers. For Gauguin, the [...]
Sympathy with another’s emotions is based on the quality or perceived quality of those emotions and the quality of our own sensibility. If we don’t have the ability to sympathize with the other person, it is because their emotions have no value to us. If they did have value, we could say it is because [...]
I have always enjoyed More’s Utopia. Particularly the “framing sequence” of the letters at the beginning (a bit like Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s “this is based on a true story”, followed by the radio news broadcast about cemeteries being desecrated) and his description of places that are “close to Utopia”. Far from being instructive, it is [...]
What I find astounding in Lucretius is his conception of what atoms are and how they behave, a conception which persists in contemporary thought. The idea that atoms are uniform and colourless has been superseded, but is counterbalanced by a search for smaller particles that have less distinguishable characteristics.
The argument that space must be infinite [...]
Aristotle doesn’t really seem to care what we feel. His measure of happiness, based on some inflexible standards of what constitutes the good and virtuous, don’t really refer to pleasure. The geometrical proof of what parts of the human experience are “higher” and “lower” seeks to impose objective standards of what constitutes happiness. It is [...]
Reading Aristotle’s Ethics reminds me of the things I usually don’t like about conventional writings in occidental philosophy. The plodding, methodical progress to prove the minor points that support an argument drive me crazy, the same way that meeting facilitators who say “that is a valid point, but we aren’t there yet” also drive me [...]
Maybe this is for the best. I have been telling myself I would start writing a regular weblog, but so far I haven’t had any compelling reason to make entries in it. I’m not one of those people who urgently wants to record my clever musings about food, or gadgets, or music. I would really [...]