by Ed Mooney
Is self-knowledge something accomplished in solitude, mulling over our past and our life with others – something that occurs on solitary walks or looking out over the sea? Here is a friend and fine philosopher writing about a couple’s coming to know each other: Sarah has been veiled from Chuck for most of the time he has known her. While the veils protected her, kept her from being known, they also made it nearly impossible for her to make herself […]
by Ed Mooney
—What is your purpose? So asks a recent New York Times Op-Ed column by David Brooks. That’s the title. Before narrowing down to ask us to sort out our purpose in life, Brooks observes that Intellectual prestige has drifted away from theologians, poets and philosophers and toward neuroscientists, economists, evolutionary biologists and big data analysts. These scholars have a lot of knowledge to bring, but they’re not in the business of offering wisdom on the ultimate questions. I think he’s […]
by Ed Mooney
I just came across, for the twentieth time, that enigmatic sentence from Thoreau’s Walden. It opens his chapter, “Sounds”: . . . while we read only particular written languages . . .we are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard. It’s bad enough that Thoreau has “all things and events speak,” but how do they manage that without metaphor? Does a tree literally whisper? Do things and […]
by Ed Mooney
As someone who writes quite a bit about religion from philosophical and literary — not to say, religious — points of view, I was not surprised but piqued by a Sunday opinion piece in the New York Times. Here is T. M. Luhrmann, a Stanford anthropologist who writes regularly for the Times on religion. Here she reports on “Faith vs. Facts.” A broad group of scholars is beginning to demonstrate that religious belief and factual belief are indeed different kinds of mental […]
Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: religion, science, The Bible, thinking, Thoreau
by Ed Mooney
What would it be to find wisdom in an unhurried way of life? What is it to discover a “sensuous slowness” in one’s life – to discover a Sabbath or sabbatical? Franco Berardi, an Italian Marxist, dons the cloak of a prophet. He foresees a cultural revolution based on . . . facing the inevitable with grace, discovering the sensuous slowness of those who do not expect any more from life than wisdom — the wisdom of those who have seen […]
Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: Franco Berardi, Kierkegaard, slowness, Thoreau
by Ed Mooney
This is a follow up to my last post, “Corporeal Words.” There, I paused with the thought, borrowed from the philosopher Kelly Jolley, that poetry lets words become bodies or objects. Thus they might set up a resonance with our own bodies. In a comment, Daniel D’Arezzo seemed to move us toward theology. He suggested that my drift would let the word become flesh. Although I applaud this aperçu, Daniel rejects it. I would argue that every poem is an argument—argues […]
by Ed Mooney
Well, it’s Spring Break, or Spring Break is just over, and if it’s over, then Florida beaches may return to normal for this time of year. A friend, in a stroke of genius, remembered an apt line from Nietzsche. If not “found-art,” then in a relevant sense, “found-philosophy.” Here it is, from Morgenröte (The Break of Day or Dawn): The only thing that cannot be refused to these poor beasts of burden is their “holidays”—such is the name they give to […]
Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: Hilary Putnam, holidays, Marx, Nietzsche, spring break, Thoreau, vacation
by Ed Mooney
Could Milton write this? How charming is divine Philosophy Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose but musical as is Apollo’s lute He writes these lines as part of a masque in honor of chastity, presented September 29, 1634, before the Earl of Bridgewater, newly installed as President of Wales. So these lines may not express his true sentiments but rather his wish to please the Earl. And note that Milton has Apollo praise chastity. The […]
by Ed Mooney
Who says philosophers can’t be funny? Here’s Kierkegaard: What philosophers say about reality is often as disappointing as a sign you see in a shop window, which reads: Pressing Done Here. If you brought your clothes to be pressed, you would be fooled; for the sign is for sale. Philosophers offer you a service (so it seems). The banner says that they’ll smarten your appreciation of reality. So you enter the shop — only to learn than you won’t […]
Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: Kierkegaard
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