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August 18, 2024

Thoughtlets. LVI. Philosophy Folded in My Right Hip Pocket

There’s a couple of lines of a passage in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations that’ve been bothering me, “Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready, too — ready to understand heaven and earth.” I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to lose one’s philosophical acumen after graduating if it’s Continue reading

Philosophy, Thoughtlets

acumen, arrogance, Carnap, degree, ego, habits, humility, Marcus Aurelius, meditations, Philosophy, practice, read, study

August 14, 2024

Thoughtlets. LV. The darker side of tea and sympathy.

Some days Miss Anne Thrawpy comes to visit. She nestles down in my front room with a hot cup of strong black tea, lips puckered and sharp eyes piercing the steam. Sometimes Miss Anne overstays her welcome. She measures my windows for blackout curtains, and paces the yard to measure for barbed wire fencing. You Continue reading

Thoughtlets

humor, humour, misanthropy, phronesis, pragmatic, satire, sympathy, wisdom

June 29, 2024

Dissoi Logoi (cf Aristotle), the Devil’s Advocate (Mill), and comments.

Way, way back in the day — a couple millennia ago — students receiving a classical education would have learned the necessity of Dissoi Logoi to constructing their arguments. That is, they’d throw themselves full throttle into an opposing or contradictory position to their own. And while Aristotle invented neither the method nor the term, Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric, Social and Political Commentary

argument, aristotle, belief, cancel culture, controversy, covid, deplatform, devil's advocate, dissoi logoi, Mill, opinion, pandemic, Philosophy, rhetoric

June 28, 2024

Whenever two people “desire the same thing[s]” … compare Aristotle and Hobbes.

I present the following two quotes (Aristotle and Hobbes, respectively) for comparison, without analysis. Aristotle Book II, Chapter IV Friendship and Enmity, 1381b 15 And [we also feel friendly] towards those who are like ourselves in character and occupation, providing they do not get in the way or gain their living from the same source Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric

aristotle, co-operation, competition, desire, Hobbes, negotiation, Philosophy, policy, political, rhetoric, war

June 15, 2024

Thoughtlets. LIV. “Your dog is a true philosopher.”

There are people who say Dog is God spelled backward. And that’s exactly what comes to mind every time my dogs lick cat vomit off the rug. It’s a behaviour akin to playing records backward to reveal Satanic messages. This way Doris Day, that way Linda Blair. Now don’t get me wrong. I love my Continue reading

Thoughtlets

ageing, companions, dog, dogs, God, guardian, heaven, love, pets, philosopher, Philosophy, Plato, Republic

June 15, 2024

Thoughtlets. LIII. Gossepistemology.

I’m suggesting a novel portmanteau, at least in as far as a cursory Google search tells me: Gossepistemology. Gossip + Epistemology. (*Google provides links to myriad articles on gossip & epistemology.) In Philosophy, epistemology is the branch concerned with the study of knowledge. A classical concern of epistemology is the distinction between opinion and knowledge Continue reading

Thoughtlets

belief, distinction, doxa, evidence, gossepistemology, gossip, knowledge, opinion, Philosophy, reliable, rhetoric, social, testimony

June 15, 2024

Thoughtlets. LII. Malthusian Trivia: Not an Enemy of Population Growth

About 10 years ago I spent what I call The Summer of Malthus. By which I mean that one of the tasks I was set to as a research assistant was to read Robert Thomas Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population, searching for what Malthus takes to be ‘vice’. I read a copy Continue reading

Thoughtlets

abstinence, AOUM, discipline and trial, economic, health, Malthus, misery, moral, Philosophy, political, poor, restraint, social, vice

February 17, 2024

The Death of an Industry and Its Detritus

The loss of an industry in a small, remote town can also mean the loss of an entire community built up around that industry. The sketch beside the photo is modelled on the often-fractured arthritic hands of a long time labourer at the place depicted in the photo. Both of whom I know well. *The Continue reading

Catch-All, Social and Political Commentary

class, closure, education, labor, labour, labourer, remote, retrain, rural, social class, unemployment, working class

February 10, 2024

On Hearsay-Generated Diatribes.

Some people pine for those three little words, I love you. I pine for, I don’t know. I realise time is short. That not everybody has time to read through primary sources to discover what someone has actually said and to discover the context that statement was uttered in. That not everyone has access to Continue reading

Social and Political Commentary

February 2, 2024

Thoughtlets. LI.

Observing an echo chamber developing at his university, my husband posted the following notice on his office door. Strangely enough, the notice raised not even a titter among his colleagues. Continue reading

Thoughtlets

bandwagon, cancel, cancellation, chamber, chambre, devil's advocate, dissent, dissenter, echo, echo-chamber, group think, humor, humour, notice, satire, university, yodel, yodelling