Adam Kirsch At The City Journal: ‘A Poet’s Politics’

June 19, 2023 / chr1 / Leave a comment

‘Auden’s masterpiece came quickly because the occasion was one for which Europeans of his generation had been waiting, consciously or unconsciously, for most of their lives. The poet tapped into this ambient sense of dread before he was out of his teens.‘

How might Nietzsche figure in the discussion, at least with regard to Camille Paglia. See the comments: Repost-Camille Paglia At Arion: Why Break, Blow, Burn Was Successfu l…Here’s Nietzsche scholar J.P. Stern on Nietzsche’s anti-Christian, anti-secular morality (Kant, utilitarians), anti-democratic, and anti-Greek (except the “heroic” Greek) biases…Adam Kirsch At The Prospect: ‘America’s Superman’… From The Spiked Review Of Books: “Re-Opening The American Mind”.

Some say we’re just selfish, others disagree-Franz De Waal At The NY Times 10/17/10: ‘Morals Without God?’…

Adam Kirsch Reviews Francis Fukuyama’s New Book At The City Journal: ‘The Dawn Of Politics’…Adam Kirsch In The New Republic On Slavoj Zizek: The Deadly Jester…Slavoj Zizek In The New Republic: Responding To Adam Kirsch

Via A Reader-BBC Discussion Of Arthur Schopenhauer

October 6, 2016 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Thanks, reader: ‘Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pessimistic philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. Guests include A.C. Grayling, Béatrice Han-Pile and Chris Janaway.’

It’s all pretty much will, but how he arrives at such a metaphysics gets some treatment.

As posted:

‘The separation between so-called duties of law and duties of virtue, more correctly between justice and philanthropy, which was effected by Kant in so forced and unnatural a manner, results here entirely of itself and thereby testifies to the correctness of the principle. It is the natural, unmistakable, and sharp boundary between the negative and positive, between doing no injury and helping.’

Schopenhauer, Arthur. On The Basis Of Morality.

Also On This Site: From Bryan Magee’s Talking Philosophy On Youtube: Geoffrey Warnock On Kant…Repost-From YouTube-Bryan Magee: On The Ideas Of Quine

Michael Dirda At The Washington Post-Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Son

July 27, 2014 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Full post here.

Dirda reviews this biography of Julian Hawthorne.

Did you know Hawthorne had a son who wrote for Hearst and rubbed shoulders with Twain?:

‘Over the course of his long life, Julian Hawthorne seems to have met every major literary and public figure of his time. As a child, he sometimes listened in as his father conversed with Emerson, Thoreau and Melville. At birthday parties, he played games with little Louisa May Alcott.’

Also from Michael Dirda, check out his visit to ‘Mencken Day’ in Baltimore:

‘We stayed for the afternoon talk-in which Richard Schrader revealed how slanted and inaccurate Mencken’s account of the Scopes evolution trial had been…’

The business of monkeys…

I’m often returned to the simple pleasures of bookishness while reading Dirda.

From a previous piece at the Times Literary Supplement (subscription required):

“As a student of his native literature, Mencken favours writers with the authentic American yawp – Walt Whitman and Mark Twain, the humorists George Ade and Ring Lardner. Huckleberry Finn is the novel he loves most (followed, somewhat surprisingly, by Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim). He judges Emerson to be overrated – “an importer of stale German elixirs, sometimes direct and sometimes through the Carlylean branch house”. He can’t bear the circumlocutions of Henry James and the gentility of William Dean Howells”

Elixirs and ideas Roger Scruton At The New Atlantis: ‘Scientism In The Arts & Humanities’ From Scientific Blogging: ‘The Humanities Are In Crisis-Science Is Not’ Repost-Adam Kirsch At The New Republic: ‘Art Over Biology’…Repost-Stanley Fish At The NY Times Blog: ‘The Last Professors: The Corporate Professors And The Fate Of The Humanities’

Menand wonders in his new book, why it often can take 9 years for a humanities PhD to get their doctorate. He suggests part of the answer lies in the numbers: fewer opportunities and fewer university programs since 1970. Overtrained and underpaid.

Michael Dirda From The Sunday Times Via The A & L Daily: ‘H.L. Mencken At Full Throttle’

April 13, 2013 / chr1 / 2 Comments

Full piece here:

“As a student of his native literature, Mencken favours writers with the authentic American yawp – Walt Whitman and Mark Twain, the humorists George Ade and Ring Lardner. Huckleberry Finn is the novel he loves most (followed, somewhat surprisingly, by Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim). He judges Emerson to be overrated – “an importer of stale German elixirs, sometimes direct and sometimes through the Carlylean branch house”. He can’t bear the circumlocutions of Henry James and the gentility of William Dean Howells”

Also On This Site: How might Nietzsche figure in the discussion, at least with regard to Camille Paglia. See the comments: Repost-Camille Paglia At Arion: Why Break, Blow, Burn Was Successfu l…Here’s Nietzsche scholar J.P. Stern on Nietzsche’s anti-Christian, anti-secular morality (Kant, utilitarians), anti-democratic, and anti-Greek (except the “heroic” Greek) biases…

From Poemshape Via Andrew Sullivan: ‘Let Poetry Die’…Here’s a suggestion to keep aesthetic and political judgements apart-Roger Scruton In The American Spectator Via A & L Daily: Farewell To Judgment…English departments can’t just copy “(S)cience”…yet they have so much to offer.

From Bloggingheads: Metaphysics Of The Hangman

September 7, 2008October 10, 2009 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Discussion here.

At UNC, both Joshua Knobe and Jesse Prinz are making deep arguments for morality having its origin in the emotions. Knobe brings up Nietzschean metaphysics of the hangman.

I have some doubts about the aims of experimental philosophy, though it’s interesting.

It seems philosophy is at its best in the pursuit of metaphysics (going deeper than physics), not necessarily in the pursuit of emulating physics through empiricism, or scientific method, or experimentation. Metaphysics has deeper legitimacy problems enough as it is…and I’m wondering if this type of thing will advance the field (if there is a field).

It may, however, likely provide some philosophical depth for evo-biologists and cognitive scientists across the land. The pursuit of a secular morality?

Addition: My ignorance shows: I should say, through deep, often rationalist metaphysics pursing “empirical research.” As for Prinz, he has made a case for directing cognitive sciences back toward emipricism.