Maverick Philosopher

Susan Sontag on the Art of the Aphorism

Top o' the Stack

Grievance and a Life Well-Lived

A life well-lived cannot have grievance as its organizing principle.

Consolation

There is some consolation in the thought that Rome did not fall in a day.  The older you are, the greater the consolation.

A Philosopher's Last Words

What I haven't been able to learn by living, I now hope to learn by dying.

An Extreme Form of Preaching to the Choir

Talking to oneself in the wee hours, rehearsing a rant, as the caffeine kicks in.

Kitsch

Kitsch is art's comfort food: familiar, reliable in its satisfactions, readily available, not particularly nourishing, but also not challenging to its consumers, remunerative for its producers.

Dialogue and Monologue

A dialogue is not a confrontation between two monologues. (Inspired by Frithjof Schuon)

Against Specialization

"Specialization is for insects." (Robert A. Heinlein)

If so, there is no 'insect' like the hyper-specialized analytic philosopher. (See here for quotation and context.)

The true philosopher is "a spectator of all time and existence," (Plato) and of everything sublunary and superlunary.

Panoptics and synoptics are the optics of the true philosopher.  Spinoza the lens-grinder would agree. 

Juvenilia

I pulled out my scribblings from the summer of '66.  Puerile stuff from a half-century ago. Painful in places.  But earnest and sincere with a good line here and there.  The old man honors the adolescent he was.

I wrote for posterity, though I didn't realize it at the time.  And I still do.  The posterity of self. 

One Man's Pedantry . . .

. . . is another man's precision.

Continence

There is continence sexual and gustatory. Custody of the eyes and of the heart are forms of continence.  Continence should also extend to rebuttals, replies, ripostes, rejoinders, responses, and reactions. Deny yourself the desire for vindication, and getting in the last word. Better retraction than self-serving reaction. The self denied is the ego; the self that denies is the soul.

The Main Argument against Secular Humanism

Humans.

The Ultimate Orwellianism

The ultimate Orwellianism is to refer to the terminally benighted as 'woke.'

Erasure of the Historical Record

The erasure of the historical record via alteration of documents, book burning, iconoclasm, shadow-banning, and the like is common to totalitarian systems whether Communist, National Socialist, Fascist, Islamist, or  'woke.'

Hatred of Apostates

Hatred of apostates is another similarity between leftists and radical Muslims. 

Self Respect

Just as we should not become too familiar with others, we should not become too familiar with ourselves. 

First Thought of the Day

Life is a task; the world is a proving ground. First thought, best thought.

Low Lives

People on a low level should not lower themselves further by pretending that they are not.

Which is Worse?

A former colleague of mine published one lousy book, a teacher of mine, many.

What Did He Expect?

He prayed for the ability to see himself objectively, but then complained that he did not like what he saw.

Odd Man Out

Among the cardinal virtues, courage is the odd man out. It is almost always prudent to be prudent, temperate, and just, but not often  prudent to be courageous. 

A Reason for Reserve

The less I know of you, the more highly I can think of you.

The Melting Pot

A melting pot can't do its job if unmeltable ingredients are thrown into it.

Takes a Lifetime

It takes a lifetime to get used to a world one must soon quit.

A Reason to Live Long

There is work to be done, and it may be that it can only be done here. It may be that at death soul-making stops and one is stuck at the moral, intellectual, and spiritual level one has attained in the precincts of the sublunary. This could prove problematic if one survives one's bodily death.  Are you sure that you don't? 

A Lesser Light, No Lucifer

The lesser light, knowing its rays to be mainly reflections and refractions, will not confuse itself with a self-effulgent source, let alone with the Sun of all suns.

The 'Progressive'

A 'progressive' is one who has made no progress in understanding the world. If he had, he would understand that his proposed changes are not improvements.  This assumes, charitably, that he understands the difference between 'change' and 'improvement.'

True Community

A true community is made of and by individuals, and individuals are made by solitude. True community is as much a task as self-individuation. 

Modus Trollens

The modus operandi of the cyberpunk.

The Optics of Compassion

We make a brave attempt at seeing the best in one another. The attempt is aided by not looking too closely.

Italicizing and Underlining

The writer italicizes what he hopes the reader would underline were there no italicization.

Moral Progress

A large part of moral progress is progress in the realization of how much you need it. So, initially at least, the recession of the goal as you approach it indicates progress toward it.

All is Fleeting

The 'is' gladdens; the 'fleeting' saddens. 

Truth and Decision

One cannot decide what the truth is. But one can and must decide what one will accept and live by as the truth.

The Odd Man Out Among the Cardinal Virtues

It is always prudent to be prudent, temperate, and just, but often imprudent to be courageous.

His Story

History is largely His Story, but part of that story is how place was made, by men mainly, but not solely, for Her Story. 

I Know My Limits

I know my limits, but I also know that I have limits that I don't know.   Complete self-knowledge would require both knowledge of my known limits and knowledge of my unknown limits. Complete self-knowledge, therefore, is impossible. 

(Note how 'I' is used above.  It is not being used as the first-person singular pronoun. It is being used as a universal quantifier. As above used, 'I' does not have an antecedent; it has substituends (linguistic items) and values (non-linguistic items). The above use of 'I' is a legitimate use, not a misuse.)

Augustine was Right

It is our love of the Unchanging Light, a love unconscious of itself and grotesquely diffracted into creatures, that animates our inordinate love of them. 

Against Marx

"The philosophers have variously interpreted the world, but the point is to change it." (Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, #11) No, the point is to understand it, and to understand it so well that one understands that it cannot be changed in any but metaphysically inessential and unimportant ways.

Pleasure in the Petty

We humans are ineluctably petty in various ways. It can't helped. And so we can't be faulted for the occasional pleasure we take in the petty particulars of the quotidian round, such as the way the towels are arranged on the rack or the way the lazy cats are splayed upon the bed.

Quality and Equality

Quality of life is what counts, not equality of outcome. To enforce the latter is to destroy the former.

The Less I Know of You . . .

. . . the more highly I can think of you. And the more highly I think of myself, the less I know of myself.

Ars vivendi longa, sed vita brevis

Life is too short to master the art of life. That is surely the case for most. A few old souls are exceptions to the rule. 

Self-Deprecation

A modicum of self-deprecation,  judiciously deployed, will enhance your relations with others. Too much will earn contempt, and the opposite hostility.

Progress in Philosophy

I am making progress in philosophy, which is not to say that philosophy is making progress in me.

 

Earning and Living

The trick is to earn a living without living to earn.

Your Vehicle

Keep it roadworthy. But it's only a vehicle. And life's only a road.

And don't forget to take it easy. We're going to the end of the line.

Reason

Reason calls itself into question but often won't allow a challenge from anything other than reason. But if reason, despite its weakness, has the power to limit its reach and curb its pretensions, then it is strange indeed that it should not allow this power to other sources of insight such as faith, mystical intuition, and conscience.

Writing and Reading

He who writes may or may not be read, but he who only reads will never be read.

A Meta-Aphorism

An aphorism that comments on itself is no aphorism, which fact does not rule out commentary on aphorisms.