Marcus Aurelius
Undead PhilosophyThe Stoics & Natural Law Marcus Aurelius Roman emperor ad 121 -180 known as the philosopher king he aligned himself to a group of Hellenistic philosopher called the stoics founded by Zeno of Citium C 334 B.C -262 . Stoics believed that happiness should not be affect by events .the stoic universe was a divinely ordered one and there development of natural law is one to be attributed to Cicero. Stoicism laid great emphasis on goodness and peace of mind gained from living a life of Virtue in accordance with Nature. It proved very successful, and flourished as the dominant philosophy from the Hellenistic period through to the Roman era. Many believed the universe was created by god whom we can see in its inherent rationality and law applied universally and equally Cicero(106-43 BCE), is often considered to be a member of the stoic school of thought . He was very important lawman “True law is right reason in agreement with nature.” (“There will not be different laws
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My gap year, a journey towards enlightenment
Shooting the messenger.
MO-MENTS or IDLE THOUGHTSSymbolising the two “levels” of thinking. When someone points out that something we like is bad for us it is most often human nature to “shoot the messenger” and do nothing about the message. ☺
Conceptual Considerations
Theologians, Inc.It’s incredibly easy to fall into the trap of conceptual confusion in philosophy – or really anything in general. This can have some pretty wide-ranging side effects – consider the free-will debate. That’s as a conceptually confused debate if there ever was one.
Back home
Oscar's BlogWell I’m back home. Home sweet home. I arrived in Philadelphia at about 1:30 in the afternoon. It’s been a long day so far, but I’m finally settled back in and can’t wait to spend these next ten days with friends and family. But let’s get on with the past few months. I haven’t been home since January, training to be an MA since day one. I finally have my badge to prove that I can be great in the Navy’s security force. I’m proud of myself of what I accomplished. Ask anyone. I haven’t been the type to prove myself at all, mainly because I haven’t really accomplished a whole lot. But now I’m on a roll, where I’m getting qualified for this and that and I’m going to mother fuckin’ Japan in 10 days. Shit, I barely left my room about a year and a half ago and now here I am, ready to travel the world and serve my country. So, while I was in Lackland AFB, I met countless amounts of amazing people. People from al
MADNESS – Michel Foucault
VIEW FROM A BURROW“One day, perhaps, we will no longer know what madness was. Its form will have closed up on itself, and the traces it will have left will no longer be intelligible. To the ignorant glance, will those traces be anything more than simple black marks?” (541 Foucault History of Madness) I’ve recently finished Michel Foucault’s book, History of Madness published by Routledge press. Reading the book cover to cover was very much like looking at an enormous painting very closely, one inch at a time, so that by the end of all the inches, one might be able to hold in place an image in one’s mind, or for an instant glimpse the mirage of a glimmering form evolving over the course of centuries, being filled by generations of people who fill what pre-exists, changing it and being changed in the process. For now, I’d like to make a few sort of broad strokes - Madness is a form of unreason, to be understood as a manner of being that is incapable of acting reasonably. Reason is the ability to carry out
Objective Identity
griffithlightonPhilosophy is the great adventure of infinite possibility, but limited probability, busy as we are nullifying the possible, verifying the probable. The Logical Condition Psychologists tell us that reality is subjective. Everyone perceives the same object differently. We have varying interpretations of the same thing. Every thing has a different meaning for every one. Like Einstein said, space and time, and everything it measures, is relative to the observer. To be sure, Wall Street loves this interpretation of what reality is. In the world of phenomenology anything is possible. For Wall Street executives, and the beneficiaries of their work, the Great Recession is a net positive. It confirms objective reality. For labor, the recession has a relative (comparative) negative value, which Objectivists say is delusional. According to conservatives, unemployment makes us more productive, which yields an indivisible, net benefit. When supply-siders act to add supply by reducing demand, creati
Two quotes from ‘Either/Or’ by Søren Kierkegaard
The OPINION“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke”. “Something wonderful happened to me. I was transported into the seventh heaven. All the gods sat there in assembly. By special grace I was accorded the favour of a wish. ’Will you,’ said Mercury, ‘have youth, or beauty, or power, or a long life, or the prettiest girl, or any other of the many splendours we have in our chest of knick-knacks? So choose, but just one thing’. For a moment I was at a loss. Then I addressed myself to the gods as follows: ‘ Esteemed contemporaries, I choose one thing: always to have laughter on my side.’ Not a single word did one god offer in answer; on the contrary they all began to laugh. From this I concl
Beyond Good and Evil, Again
The Naked Old ManMy disenchantment with morality began a long time ago, a combination of the counter cultural zeitgeist of my youth and my innate skepticism. Or maybe like most kids I didn’t like being told what I couldn’t do. Part of it was the nonsense of sexual morality, the popularity of sexual liberation, and the onset of adolescence. In the days before AIDS it was kind of a no-brainer. (For the record, before you start thinking of me as a golden age swinger hopping from bed to bed, I was too shy to put much of anything into practice. A lot of my life is merely conceptual. The idea of being sexually restricted was enough to piss me off.) Little by little it was also the pettiness of morality. Too often it was a matter of turning impropriety into sin, observing that people would be condemned to damnation for very trivial infractions. Thankfully I had a working class family of a generally secular bent with a more or less tolerant attitude, not because they were intellectuals (though most
Nazis: a warning from history
Type B NegativeThe title of this blog is (more or less) the title of a series of three programmes that I had recorded quite a while ago on my sky+ box. Over the last couple of weeks I have watched them and thought about them. Of course there is the obvious reaction to the actions (and inactions) of those involved in the atrocities that were perpetrated against the Jewish people at the time – horror and disgust, coupled with a, perhaps unbecoming, fascination with how the hell people could treat others in such an ‘inhuman’ way. I put that word in quotation marks because remembering that humans are capable of such things, leads me to question what it is to be human? The holocaust is not easy subject matter for pleasant conversation, some people would say, perhaps because it is a real conversation. I am bored to death with having dull, platitudinous conversations about the weather and other such inanities. Talking about what idiot was on television being paid to play the id
Open the Door: Feminist Philosophy
Nouns, Stories, and RelationshipsI’ve managed to tell a tale or two from two classes on my anthropology and philosophy days, but no stories from my other two classes made it to the blog before classes ended. I apologize. Over the last four months, I have opened my philosophy days with feminism. From Simone de Beauvoir to Gloria Anzaldúa and Michel Foucault, my class surveyed three waves of feminism through their theorists. Whew! Much of my efforts (for this class) since Spring Break have revolved around a research presentation and paper, which comprised of 45% of my grade when combined. I chose to investigate sex trafficking and sexual slavery, in large part because of friends I met in Egypt and at camp. Commonly referred to as “sex trafficking,” there are two connected components that make this an issue: sexual slavery and human trafficking. Though ubiquitous and global in scope, women, men, and children are domestically trafficked near to home as well. Human trafficking is clandestinely moving peop
