In the first installment of a two-part series, Nicholas Joll tries to convince us that, for one thing, fire is not hot and, for another, that sincerity is impossible.
The Ship of Theseus and “The Outer Limits of Reason”
According to Noson S. Yanofsky, the universe does not contain contradictions, but our thinking about it does and must. If this is true, any representation of the universe must be inaccurate, not simply in details, but also in substance.
Entering the Stoic World, Part 2: Metaphysics
The Stoics regarded each person as a microcosmos in whom the macrocosmos of the universal Logos is reflected.
Feeling Good About Oppression
In the Nietzsche episode, I made a point relating Nietzsche’s “bright side” of slave morality with Hegel’s account of the master-slave encounter. To refresh: Nietzsche’s story in the Genealogy of Morals involves the oppressed turning in on themselves for satisfaction, because they can’t get satisfaction in the usual brutish, masterful way. Nietzsche is often taken in telling this story to Continue Reading …
Speaking Across History (And Other Expanses): Two Models of Reading
My concern here, as is often the case, is with our methodology at PEL. As we go through these various readings and figure out what we want to say about them, I periodically figure out some articulable point about how I’m reading and why I feel the need to express what I do as opposed to something else. On three Continue Reading …
Episode 79: Heraclitus on Understanding the World
Eva Brann discusses her book The Logos of Heraclitus (2011).
End song: “Trading Away” by New People, from Impossible Things (2011).
Episode 79: Heraclitus on Understanding the World
Eva Brann discusses her book The Logos of Heraclitus (2011).
Topic for #79: Heraclitus’s Metaphysics of Tension with Eva Brann
On Saturday 6/22 the regular foursome sat down with Eva Brann, Dylan’s colleague at St. John’s in Anapolis, to talk with her about her book The Logos of Heraclitus. Heraclitus (who was active around 500 BCE) is the “Pre-Socratic” philosopher with probably the most influence today and together with Parmenides (it’s not clear which of the two lived first or Continue Reading …
Come Join My Heraclitus Not School Group
For Episode #79 (to be recorded in late June and released in July), we’ll be reading Eva Brann’s The Logos of Heraclitus and interviewing her about it. She was a colleague of Dylan’s at St. John’s, and her book exhibits that love of etymology that has come up recently on PEL whenever Heidegger is mentioned, for which St. John’s is Continue Reading …