Among the many old books on my shelves are a couple of dozen especially battered ones. Some belong to my father’s collection (I will write on these on another occasion); some belong to my uncle’s. And then there are another two, especially fragile, their pages browned and brittle, also brought back from India, just likeContinue reading “My Mother’s Books: Symbols of Resistance”
Category Archives: Philosophy
Saba Naqvi on A Supposed Crisis of Indian Secularism
Saba Naqvi has offered an interesting critique of Indian secularism; in it, she writes of the need to: [C]onfront the great crisis of Indian secularism, that is now so hollowed out that it makes it easy for communal forces to grow….Indian secularism is not about some utterance of the soul as a Jawaharlal Nehru may haveContinue reading “Saba Naqvi on A Supposed Crisis of Indian Secularism”
Yosemite and Sequoia: Visiting John Muir’s Playgrounds
Last week, my family and I traveled to California; more precisely, to Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks. (We visited family in Los Angeles as well.) Superlatives for national parks are a dime-a-dozen, so most writing on them is doomed to cliche. But let me press on regardless. The landscapes of these parks, likeContinue reading “Yosemite and Sequoia: Visiting John Muir’s Playgrounds”
Constantine Rafinesque’s Anticipation of Evolutionary Theory
The opening paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for Constantine Rafinesque notes that he was: [A] nineteenth-century polymath who made notable contributions to botany, zoology, the study ofprehistoric earthworks in North America and ancient Mesoamerican linguistics. It then continues: Rafinesque was eccentric, and is often portrayed as an “erratic genius”.[1] He was an autodidact who excelled in various fields of knowledge, as a zoologist, botanist, writer and polyglot. HeContinue reading “Constantine Rafinesque’s Anticipation of Evolutionary Theory”
Urban Climbing: Over And Above A Dead-End World
If you are hankering for a serious attack of nausea consider viewing the Channel 4 documentary Don’t Look Down (featuring James Kingston) or the RT documentary ‘Russian Daredevils’ or, perhaps, best of all, go to Mustang Wanted’s webpage. The folks in these documentaries are ‘urban climbers’ – young folks, invariably men, who free-climb up skyscrapers,Continue reading “Urban Climbing: Over And Above A Dead-End World”
Academic Writing In Philosophy: On Finding Older Writing Samples
Yesterday, while cleaning up an old homepage of mine, I found some old papers written while I was in graduate school. Overcome by curiosity–and rather recklessly, if I may say so–I converted the old Postscript format to PDF, and took a closer look. The first is titled ‘No Cognition Without Representation’; its abstract reads: AContinue reading “Academic Writing In Philosophy: On Finding Older Writing Samples”
Guns and Speech, Gunslingers and Writers
Patrick Blanchfield examines some of the troubling constitutional questions raised by the gun-toting folks who showed up to protect Cliven Bundy in Nevada: According to open carry advocates, their presence in public space represents more than just an expression of their Second Amendment rights, it’s a statement, an “educational,” communicative act — in short, anContinue reading “Guns and Speech, Gunslingers and Writers”
Larry Gopnik: A Serious Man Dealt a Bad Hand
Ethan and Joel Cohen‘s A Serious Man is a very funny, very bleak movie. It is very funny because it points out that life is really quite ludicrous, a gigantic joke at our expense; it is very bleak because it points out that life is really quite ludicrous, a gigantic joke…you see where I’m going withContinue reading “Larry Gopnik: A Serious Man Dealt a Bad Hand”
Julian Young on Schopenhauer on Suicide
In his concise introduction to Schopenhauer, Julian Young notes he considered it “incumbent on any ‘ethical system’ to commit suicide.” Indeed, that Stoicism fails to do so, and indeed, even recommends it “in cases where pain is intolerable”, is for Schopenhauer, proof of its “intellectual bankruptcy.” Young rightly makes the obvious point: this seems like a strangeContinue reading “Julian Young on Schopenhauer on Suicide”
Tribalism’s Easy Allure: Brooklyn Does Not Like Toronto Anymore (in the NBA)
Tribalism in sports is a curious thing; it is especially so in professional sports, where as I’ve noted, we encounter: [T]he mystery of how millions of sports fans, here in the US, and all over the world, develop long-standing, passionately defended and articulated, emotionally infused, personal allegiances with large, profit-seeking, corporate entities, an enterprise thatContinue reading “Tribalism’s Easy Allure: Brooklyn Does Not Like Toronto Anymore (in the NBA)”
Samir Chopra 