March 2011
1 post
Plotinus and Goodness →
“But one ought to try to become as good as possible oneself, but not to think that only oneself can become perfectly good — for if one thinks this one is not perfectly good. One must rather think…
November 2010
5 posts
“HA ha, look at all of them down there with their discursive thought.”
– God
I was just talking to God, and (do I really have philosophical conversations with God? When I’m cracked out on coffee — yes) at one point I found myself emphatically saying to him “…because the history of thought IS thought!” It just occurred to me. And then I realized, oh right, that’s what Hegel is saying…
I had a very unexpected and surprising soul moment today. Chatting it up with an undergrad philosophy major. We’ve noticed over our few conversations in the last few months that we have a lot in common, personality wise. But never thought THIS would happen. I was talking about how I have to really work up the confidence to get something started, instead of just jump into things like a lot...
“I know very well that a great many theists are nearer pessimists than optimists,...”
– Peirce
Listening to a Requiem while reading a particularly dry contemporary defense of realism. I feel contradiction, and strange.
October 2010
7 posts
I’d like to congratulate my uterus (well, and whole reproductive system) for having a 31 day cycle this past month. That’s basically normal. Yay uterus!
“I regard Logic as the Ethics of the Intellect— that is, in the sense in...”
– C.S. Peirce
“Ethics is the study of the methods of increasing self-control. Alternatively...”
– W.T. Jones, regarding Peirce’s view.
“Descartes marks the period when Philosophy put off childish things and began to...”
– C.S. Peirce
“My own philosophy resuscitates Hegel, though in a strange costume.”
– Peirce
“As soon as you’ve opened your mouth you’ve mediated.”
– Hegel, paraphrased by Dr. Morelli
“He’s seductive. Once you posit certain things, it all makes sense. But do you...”
– Dr. Morelli, on Hegel
September 2010
4 posts
The Elimination of Metaphysics →
Henry: Guess what Molly! I made the greatest soup ever last night for dinner!
Molly: Oh really? What kind?
Henry: I call it “Soup Itself.” Molly: Wow. Must be good. What’s the recipe?
Henry: Recipe!…
time and chicken nuggets →
I’m tired out. Meaningless, meaningless.
It occurred to me that the veggie chicken nuggets baking in the oven have a different experience of time than I have. The four more minutes they get to bake…
OH NO. It’s starting to get really bad. I just went for a run. Sit down, looking at the computer for a few minutes. Then suddenly flash back into “reality,” and think, “Oh! I should get running already.” WHAT???? I’me even forgetting that I just went for a run? Lately I’ve been waking up and not knowing where the hell I am, on both coasts...
“Our age seems to have outgrown Hegel. We have lost the feeling for religion,...”
– Frederick Beiser. <i>Sigh.</i>
August 2010
65 posts
“But the shock of [different, irreconcilable] opinions will soon lead men to rest...”
– Peirce, “The Fixation of Belief”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” M. Pascal said to M. de Saci, “for...”
– Pascal, Conversation with M. de Saci. Sounds like an apology Plato’s Socrates would occasionally make, except more explicit.
Frances opened the refrigerator, took out the orange juice, and JUST caught herself from pouring orange juice into her bowl of pancake batter. I love her and her preoccupied little mind.
“All our life passes in this way. We seek rest in a struggle against some...”
– Pascal. Exhibit A: When I finish a paper or large project, I feel an absolute nothingness I can hardly bear. Even though I had yearned for its completion with all of my heart during the process. My supine rest on my bed, as I stare at the ceiling and find myself and my life intolerably...
creepy...
Simple description of INFP personality type on wikipedia:
The polite, reserved exterior of INFPs can at first make them difficult to get to know. They enjoy conversation, however, taking particular delight in the unusual. When INFPs are in a sociable mood, their humor and charm shine through. Disposed to like people and to avoid conflict, INFPs tend to make pleasant company.
From my About Me on...
Filipina mom at orthodontist: you better do your summer reading. Girl: Mom, I read my books twice. Mom: you sure twice? Girl: Twice!
uhh book report on INFPness?
Oh INFPs…. I was convinced Jewel is, and found out, of course she is. And I ran into a funny forum. A particularly proud INFP says regarding famous INFP:
“my opinions, which no website seems to list”
Plato St. Augustine Dante Alighieri Soren Kierkegaard Immanuel Kant (either that or INTJ) Henry David Thoreau Anthony Kiedis Johnny Depp Chris McCandless Bill Hicks Rivers Cuomo...
Sometimes I feel like I should make a few classically youthful mistakes — not at all because I want to, all things considered. I don’t want these things and I most likely will never do them — but I should do them to prevent myself from being a self-righteous parent. Who is really just frightened by the brazenness of her children and their unfamiliar experiences. And who simply...
The worst part of seriously writing a paper is that I get extremely fidgety—particularly if I am on a caffeine high. Also, I generally don’t feel human at all.
“Daddy, sometimes it feels like I’ve been on the plane for 2 minutes, and...”
– little 5 year old phenomenologist on the plane. Daddy responds, “OK honey.”
“Joey and Dawson are forever … She’s having sex with Pacey.”
– Kevin Williamson (the producer)
I miss Dawson’s Creek so much.
If i haven’t had coffee it is really hard for me to figure out if a modus tollens is valid.
“Someone realizing he has said or done a foolish thing always thinks this will be...”
– Pascal S779. Hopefully it does both, and that the latter is often true.
“To learn we have said or done a foolish thing, that is nothing. We must learn...”
– Montaigne
“For is it not true that we hate the truth and those who tell it us, and we like...”
– Pascal s743
“On the miracle. As God has made no family happier, let him also make it be that...”
– Pascal S753
“It is like a child whom a mother tears from the arms of robbers: in the pain it...”
– Pascal S753
“When our passion leads us to do something, we forget our duty: this is similar...”
– Pascal s763 hahaha…love the way this man thinks. now if only I could get myself to do something I dislike!
I hope british people know that i can’t take them seriously with their accents
“The religion of the Jews seemed to consist essentially in Abraham’s...”
– Pascal s693 hmmm…..
good person →
This is what I was trying to say a few months ago to someone: When a friend does something wrong, we quickly defend the person and say “but she is a good person.” We usually end up saying that about…
“But, you will say, there everything is captured in a word. Yes,but it is useless...”
– Pascal S562 & 563. Against reductionism and the collapsing of useful distinctions.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo I’m not writing a paper on Pascal, why would you think that?
“We can only imagine Plato and Aristotle in long academic gowns. They were honest...”
– Pascal S457 Simply the best of Pascal’s thoughts.
“How difficult it is to propose something for another to judge without affecting...”
– Pascal S454 Pascal had a nice way of painting every-day images of Modernity’s epistemological scruples.
moved →
Today Frances remembered the name of the book I had been reading on my own in the beginning of the summer. “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” by Muriel Barbery. I can’t even ever remember the name of…
“We make an idol of truth itself, for truth apart from charity is not God, but...”
“Now the ultimate end is what gives names to things.”
– Pascal S738
“Do they claim to have delighted us by telling us that they hold our soul to be...”
– Pascal S681…. Here’s Pascal’s input, NYtimes saddest words competitors http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/weekend-competition-the-saddest-words-in-the-english-language/
“….Such is my state, full of weakness and uncertainty. And from all this I...”
– Pascal’s interlocutor S681