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Don’t Take Life So Seriously: Montaigne’s Life Lessons

My dad was an unhappy man. He used to complain about the slightest thing being out of place – a pen, the honeypot, his special knife with the fattened grip. By the time his health really started failing, his arthritis so bad he could no longer get out of bed, his condition became all he complained about. ‘Dorian,’ he said, one morning over breakfast, the grapefruit cut up indeed with his special…

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#Michel de Montaigne

Ye shall do this, ye shall do that: Making sense of Passover (from a non-Jewish point of view)

Originally appeared at The Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/judaism/jewish-holidays/making-sense-of-passover-from-a-non-jewish-point-of-view-624532

A long green cloud appears in the night sky and hovers next to the moon. It then breaks into witch-like fingers and descends to earth. I’ll never forget that scene, as well as the eerie music accompanying it.

It comes from the classic 1956 film Th…

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#coronavirus #Covid19 #non-Jewish #Passover #Philosophy

Your Only Failure Is Your Utter Lack of Culture: Eight Life Lessons from Anton Chekhov's Letter to His Brother Nikolay

Your Only Failure Is Your Utter Lack of Culture: Eight Life Lessons from Anton Chekhov’s Letter to His Brother Nikolay

Anton Chekhov’s letter to his artist brother Nikolay reminds us that we need to work toward the better angels of our nature: to be more kind, sympathetic, respectful, sincere, elevated, deep, respectful and tasteful… in short, more cultured.

To His Brother Nikolay (Moscow, 1886):

… You have often complained to me that people “don’t understand you”! Goethe and Newton did not complain of that….…

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#Advice #Anton Chekhov #Art #Culture #Letters #Turgenev #Virtues

Hey Parents: Let Your Children Be Radical Novelties!

In “Becoming Parents to Ourselves” Eldar Sarajlic, an assistant professor of philosophy at the City University of New York, offers some words of wisdom on parenthood.

Although he gets stuck in the weeds at some point and assumes that our personal identities are built on rational reflections (when they are also built on chance or circumstance, semi-conscious or even downright irrational…

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The Radical Queen is Dead, Long Live the Traditional Elites: Zizek Takedown of Game of Thrones Season 8 "The stakes in the final conflict are thus: should the revolt against tyranny be just a fight for the return of the old kinder version of the same hierarchical order, or should it develop into the search for a new order that is needed?"

#Game of Thrones #Justice #Political Philosophy #Revolution #Slavoj Žižek #Tyranny

Oddballs of English Philosophy: Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English by Jonathan Rée

“Despite the disarming glee of this intellectual romp, [Jonathan] Rée doesn’t quite banish the thought that, for the English, philosophy is what history was to Henry Ford, bunk — a notion clinched by T.S. Eliot’s portrait of Bertrand Russell as Mr Apollinax, wittering incomprehensibly and laughing like an irresponsible foetus at his own wit.”

https://www.amazon.com/Witcraft/dp/0713999330/ref=pd_s…

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#Bertrand Russell #English Philosophy #Jonathan Rée #Mr Apollinax #T.S. Eliot #Wit

What’s Wrong with Being a Generalist?

I’ve always thought that life is too short, the world too big, and the wonders of existence too many, to specialize in anything. But today’s ruling ethos says that specialization is the key to advancing career-wise or to becoming a celebrated pianist. Is this really true?

Maybe breadth over depth is the way to go. In any case, it’s about time we start questioning the “specialize or perish” mantra…

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The Philosophy of The Filthy, Excessive and Unclean

Philosophy traditionally has been about ‘higher’ questions: what is knowledge? What is the meaning of justice? What is the nature of ultimate reality? These questions soar above the petty concerns of the everyday and reach towards a realm of pure ideas. But can the ‘unclean’ – dirt, mud, bodily wastes, the grime of existence – be relevant to the philosopher’s quest for wisdom and the truth?…

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#Aeon #Disparities #Filth #Forms #Francis Bacon #Hegel #Jean-Paul Sartre #Justice #Metaphysics #Morality #Nauesa #Novum Organum #Parmenides #Plato #Public Discourse #Public Sphere #Slavoj Žižek #Socrates #Thomas White

(M)Existentialism: The Habitat of Emilio Uranga’s Thinking

“Emilio Uranga (1921-1988) articulates what we could call Existentialism “a la Mexicana”, Mexican existentialism, or (M)existentialism…It does not escape Mexican philosophers that a thinking of totality, a thinking that transcends contingency and place, has been the hallmark of philosophy since it’s naming by the Greeks.”

we are not certain of the existence of man in general …[or of] what passes…

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#(M)Existentialism #Being #Difference #Emilio Uranga #Eurocentrism #Existentialism #Habitat #Identity #Mexico #Universalism

Review: Witcraft by Jonathan Rée and The History of Philosophy by AC Grayling

“Whereas Rée shows how religion and political radicalism can strike up fruitful alliances, the briskly rationalist Grayling refuses the title of philosophy to any view of the world that involves religious faith… The difference between them is clear from their writing. Rée is entertaining and stylish, Grayling is lucid but lifeless.” Book Review by Terry Eagleton in The Guardian.

https://www.amaz…

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#AC Grayling #Book Review #History of Philosophy #Jonathan Rée #Philosophers #Religion

Philosophy In The News, Weekly: March 31 - April 7, 2019

The best of the philosophical internet featuring a preview of the upcoming intellectual showdown between Jordan Peterson and Slavoj Zizek; China's vagrant philosopher who went viral; Podcaster Joe Rogan as today's Socrates; and a teenager's off-the-grid life in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The best of the philosophical internet featuring a preview of the upcoming intellectual showdown between Jordan Peterson and Slavoj Zizek; China’s vagrant philosopher who went viral; Podcaster Joe Rogan as today’s Socrates; and a teenager’s off-the-grid life in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

News

“It’s hard to deny the rubbernecking appeal of the spectacle. How often do two garrulous, ill-tempered,…

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Philosophy In The News, Weekly: March 18 - April 1, 2019

The best of the philosophical internet featuring Stoicism for Silicon Valley techies; 'The Matrix' 20 years on; civic republicanism's planet-saving potential; and Kierkegaard’s restless and ridiculed life.

The best of the philosophical internet featuring Stoicism for Silicon Valley techies; ‘The Matrix’ 20 years on; civic republicanism’s planet-saving potential; and Kierkegaard’s restless and ridiculed life.

News

“In their minds, in this clash of civilization, white men are in a weaker position because their women are not doing the work of reproducing.” A look at “replacement theory,” a sexist…

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Philosophy In The News, Weekly: March 11 - 19, 2019

The best of the philosophical internet featuring the ethics of spawning in a warming world; Peter Singer's Instagram account; the drawbacks of eternal bliss; Puffing & strutting (our primate politics); and a new philosophy of sex

The best of the philosophical internet featuring the ethics of spawning in a warming world; Peter Singer’s Instagram account; the drawbacks of eternal bliss; Puffing & strutting (our primate politics); and a new philosophy of sex

News

“Four in 10 American adults now say they meditate at least weekly. ‘Buddhism has been popular in various forms among certain celebrities and tech elites, but the…

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Emotivism: A Minimalist Conceptual Graphic from Philographics Emotivism: The assertion that all individual ethical judgments are purely expressions of one's own attitude intended to change the actions or attitudes of others. Philographics From Philographics by Genís Carreras

#Emotivism #Philographics

Philosophy In The News, Weekly: March 4 - March 11, 2019

The best of the philosophical internet featuring Socrates' love affair with a woman who helped lay the foundations of Western philosophy; the many wonderful uses of the word, 'dipshit'; digital minimalism or how to de-clutter your technological life; and what America can learn from the fall of the Roman republic.

The best of the philosophical internet featuring Socrates’ love affair with a woman who helped lay the foundations of Western philosophy; the many wonderful uses of the word, ‘dipshit’; digital minimalism or how to de-clutter your technological life; and what America can learn from the fall of the Roman republic.

News

“If the evidence for this thesis is accepted, the history of philosophy will…

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Eclecticism: A Minimalist Conceptual Graphic from Philographics Eclecticism: A conceptual approach that does not stick to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories or styles to gain a more varied or balanced insight into something. Philographics From Philographics by Genís Carreras

#Eclecticism #Philographics

Dualism: A Minimalist Conceptual Graphic from Philographics Dualism: The conviction that all concepts within the world fundamentally consist of two contrasting qualities, such as good and evil, or body and mind. Philographics From Philographics by Genís Carreras

#Dualism #Philographics

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