classics digests, reflections and reviews
The subtitle of this post should perhaps be “Kierkegaard’s Conception of Time As I Understand it”, but Kierkegaard scholars might strongly disagree with me. I’ve been meaning to write this ever since I read “Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments”, as part of an overall review of the book, but that review is long overdue. A recent discussion with an atheist friend of mine on religious belief reminded me of […]
Read moreThe Emperor Has No Clothes The overall impression or feeling I had after reading Part I is perhaps the same as that of the little child in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale: bland disappointment after being seduced into high expectations, and a nauseating sense of disgust. Is this the best you could conjure up, Herr Goethe? The “representative man”, one who is supposed to be the equal of the Spirit, […]
Read moreIn this collection of treatises, Aristotle employs the scientific method (namely, observation, inference, hypothesis and empirical proof) to determine the nature and cause of the joint activities of body and soul, namely, sense perception, memory, sleep, dreams, breathing, aging and death.
Read moreOf all the books by Aristotle that I’ve read so far, this is the most fascinating in terms of the depth and scope of the concepts, spanning philosophy, epistemology, physics and neurobiology in their nascent form; “Rhetoric“, OTOH, is the most entertaining, in terms of psychological insight and perspective. Substance and Property It seems not only useful for the discovery of the causes of the derived properties of substances to […]
Read more[Warning: The following post contains coarse language, nudity and explicit sexuality. Reader’s discretion is strongly advised.] Eppia, a Senator’s Wife Oblivious of her home and husband and sister, she disregarded her fatherland and shamelessly deserted her wailing children and, what’s more amazing, Paris and the Games. But although as a little girl she had slept in great opulence on her family down in cradles with flounces, she scorned the sea. […]
Read moreThe Dissolute He is paralysed with vice, and thick fat has gown over his liver. He has no sense of guilt or of what he’s lost. He’s sunk so deep that he makes no more bubbles on the surface. You’re still snoring and your lolling head with its joint unhinged is yawning yesterday’s yawn, with your jaws completely unstitched. Is there something you’re heading for, a target for your bow? […]
Read more[Warning: The following review may be strongly biased. I read Chesterton’s Heretics and Orthodoxy a long time ago, but retained nothing from them, except that he had sharp wit and good sense of humour; On the other hand, I’m a fan of Tolstoy and read the majority of his works] If Chesterton had reviewed his essay on Tolstoy in a more reflective mood, he would have retracted it. It’s a […]
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