For seeing the ultimate beautiesof a work,no knowledge or good will is sufficient;this requires the rarest of lucky accidents: The clouds that veil these peakshave to lift for onceso that we see them glowing in the sun. Not only do we have to standin precisely the right spot in order to see this,but the…
Met with some friends via Zoom to discuss the function of “intention” in relation to moral judgments. We agreed that intent is slippery, an ambiguous aspect of deciding right action… The intent of another’s action is notoriously difficult to ascertain. Moreover introspection of one’s own intention reveals a complex, anything but pure motivation for…
Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere! “Not to laugh, not to lament, nor to detest, but to understand” —Tractatus Politicus by Spinoza …what else is this intelligere than the form in which we come to feel the other three at once? One result of the different and mutually opposed desires to laugh,…
Every philosopher has probablyhad an evil hour when he/she thought: What do I matter if one does not accept my bad arguments, too? –And then some mischievous little bird flew past him and twittered: “What do you matter?What do you matter?” –excerpt The Gay Science, Book 4, Section 332 by Friedrich Nietzsche Perhaps we ought…
Formerly, one wished to acquire fame and be spoken of. Now that is no longer enough because the market has grown too large; nothing less than screaming will do. As a consequence, even good voices scream till they are hoarse, and the best goods are offered by cracked voices. Without the screaming of those…
We live in the age of cybernetics, of next-day Amazon delivery, of iphone instant communication anywhere in the world. The American way of life is idealized as the apex of 21st century freedom and affluence by many. Nietzsche, living in the late 19th century, as the industrial age broke like a wave transforming Europe,…
Mid-life No. Life has not disappointed me.On the contrary, I find it truer,more desirable and mysterious every year–ever since the day when the great liberator came to me: the idea that life could be an experimentof the seeker for know1edge–and not a duty, not a calamity, not trickery. –And knowledge itself: let it be…
There is as much wisdom in pain as there is in pleasure… In pain I hear the captain’s command: “Take in the sails!… The bold seafarer “man” must have mastered the art of doing a thousand things with his sails; otherwise he would be done for in no time, — the ocean would swallow…
Let us stop thinking so much about punishing, reproaching, and improving others! We rarely change an individual, and if we should succeed for once, something may also have been accomplished, unnoticed: we may have been changed by him. Let us rather see to it that our own influence on all that is yet to…
July 4th, Memorial Day 2023. And feelings that well up? Emotions are involuntary… Patriotism? Love-of-country? Perhaps I should just fix a standard American flag to the front of the garage door, a flag purchased from Amazon, or from the local Menards, –let that action suffice… Should I join the apathy, that bland, happy indifference…
