In ‘The Innocent,’ one of the twenty-one short stories in Graham Greene‘s Twenty-One Stories (Penguin, 1970), the narrator of the tale notes, On an autumn evening, one remembers more of childhood than at any other time of year… Our hero is correct. Or at least, this rings true to me. Why might that be? Our story-tellerContinue reading “The Autumn as Inducer of Childhood Remembrances”
Category Archives: Books
Geertz, Trilling and Fussell on the Transformation of the Moral Imagination
In ‘Found in Translation: Social History of Moral Imagination’, (from Local Knowledge: Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, Basic Books, New York, 1983, pp 44-45), Clifford Geertz writes, Whatever use the imagination productions of other peoples–predecessors, ancestors, or distant cousins–can have for our moral lives, then, it cannot be to simplify them. The image of the past (orContinue reading “Geertz, Trilling and Fussell on the Transformation of the Moral Imagination”
The Scandal of Closed Access to Taxpayer Funded Research
On January 21, Timothy Gowers of Cambridge announced he would no longer publish papers in Elsevier’s journals or serve as a referee or editor for them. This boycott has now been joined by thousands of other researchers. (I don’t referee any more for Elsevier, though I have in the past, and I certainly won’t be sending any papersContinue reading “The Scandal of Closed Access to Taxpayer Funded Research”
A Friendly Amendent to Nina Strohminger’s McGinn Review
Nina Strohminger–a post-doctoral fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics–recently wrote a scathing review of Colin McGinn‘s book The Meaning of Disgust. Thanks to Strohminger’s flamboyant cuffing of McGinn around the ears, her review earned her some well-deserved ‘net fame. I have not read the book so I cannot comment on it but the review doesContinue reading “A Friendly Amendent to Nina Strohminger’s McGinn Review”
Freud, Goethe and Burke on Happiness, Pleasure, and Satiation
Defining ‘happiness’ is hard; how are we to know what to do to be happy, if we don’t have a good handle on what happiness is? And thus, the persistent efforts through the ages, of philosophical minds–and more recently, grimly determined social scientists and psychologists alike–to provide some delineation of the concept. (Even David BrooksContinue reading “Freud, Goethe and Burke on Happiness, Pleasure, and Satiation”
David Mitchell on Cloud Atlas’ Provenance: Good Writers are Good Magpies
David Mitchell‘s bestselling 2004 novel Cloud Atlas sold millions of copies, and garnered ample critical praise (I have mixed feelings about it). What I found most interesting about the novel was Mitchell’s recounting of its genesis: The germ of the opening (and closing) Adam Ewing narrative, about a notary crossing the Pacific in the 1850s, comesContinue reading “David Mitchell on Cloud Atlas’ Provenance: Good Writers are Good Magpies”
Nietzsche as Reservoir Dog With ‘Style’
A few months ago, an ex-student of mine sent me the image–courtesy bros.failblog.org–above. It made him chuckle out loud; he was in a library when he came across it and decided to send it to me because he thought I would have a similar reaction. (This was shortly after I had announced that I would beContinue reading “Nietzsche as Reservoir Dog With ‘Style’”
Virginia Held on ‘An Ethics of Care’
Yesterday Professor Virginia Held delivered the annual Sprague and Taylor Lecture at the Philosophy Department at Brooklyn College. On a personal note, it gave me great pleasure to welcome Professor Held to Brooklyn College. My association with her goes back some twenty years, when I first began my graduate studies in philosophy as a non-matriculateContinue reading “Virginia Held on ‘An Ethics of Care’”
Nietzsche on the Discontinuity Between Definitions and History
From The Genealogy of Morals, Essay 2, Section 13: Only something which has no history is capable of being defined. The first time I read the Genealogy, I somehow skipped this line, or at least did not pay undue attention to it. When I read the Genealogy again, I didn’t miss it, and I paid attention:Continue reading “Nietzsche on the Discontinuity Between Definitions and History”
The Unsurprising Renaissance of Reading
Last week, Timothy Egan’s column in the New York Times noted an apparently surprising outcome of the presence of e-book readers and a ‘digital monolith’ like amazon.com, which should have resulted in the loss of the culture of reading, the loss of the culture of “ideas printed on dead trees’ to that of ‘the soullessContinue reading “The Unsurprising Renaissance of Reading”
Samir Chopra 