“The Ashtray: The Ultimatum (Part 1)” by Errol Morris
The conversation took a turn for the ugly. Were my problems with him, or were they with his philosophy? I asked him, “If paradigms are really incommensurable, how is history of science possible? Wouldn’t we be merely interpreting the past in the light of the present? Wouldn’t the past be inaccessible to us? Wouldn’t it [...]
René Descartes’ Meditationes de prima philosophia (1641)
☛ Gallica / Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Renati Des-Cartes Meditationes de prima philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animae immortalitas demonstratur. [Sequuntur objectiones… cum responsionibus authoris by René Descartes, 1641 (first Latin edition), In-8°, 603 p. (Public Domain) Click for hi-res. From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Descartes began work on Meditations on First Philosophy [...]
On Critique [1]
I had an interesting conversation yesterday with Alexander Reid, Associate Professor at the University at Buffalo. In a post he published on his blog digital digs about the challenge one faces while trying to learn new ideas, Alex wrote: In graduate school, I learned (every humanities grad student learns) to “problematize” (not a word) or [...]
Heidegger: On The Essence of Truth (1930)
Our topic is the essence of truth. The question regarding the essence of truth is not concerned with whether truth is a truth of practical experience or of economic calculation, the truth of a technical consideration or of political sagacity, or, in particular, a truth of scientific research or of artistic composition, or even the [...]
E. M. Cioran: Love, lost and hairdressers
Losing love is so rich a philosophical ordeal that it makes a hairdresser into a rival of Socrates. ☛ All Gall Is Divided by Emile M. Cioran, translated from French by Richard Howard, New York: Arcade Publishing, [1952]1999 p. 105 (Google Books preview) Here’s the original French version: Un amour qui s’en va est une [...]
