Dewey on "The Great Stand Back"

Thinking begins in what may fairly be called a forkroad situation, a situation which is ambiguous, which presents itself as a dilemma, which proposes alternatives.  As long as our activity glides smoothly along from one thing to another, or as long as we permit our imagination to entertain fancies at pleasure, there is no call for reflection.  Difficulty or obstruction in the way of reaching a belief brings us, however, to a pause.  In the suspense of uncertainty, we metaphorically climb a tree; we try to find some standpoint from which we may survey additional facts and, getting a more commanding view of the situation, may decide how the facts stand in relation to one other.  (John Dewey, How We Think)

The Holiness of Reading: don't put your blinders on.

Yes, Lukacs has the instruments to understand Heidegger, but he will not understand him; for Lukacs would have to read him, to grasp the meaning of the sentences one by one.  And there is no longer any Marxist, who is still capable of doing this.  Finally, then, there has existed a whole dialectic--and a very complex one--from Brentano to Husserl and from Husserl to Heidegger...All this adds up to what one could call an area history.  Ought we to consider it a pure epi-phenomenon?  According to what Lukacs says, yes.  Or does there exist some kind of movement of ideas, and does Husserl's phenomenology--as a moment perserved and surpassed--enter into Heidegger's system?  In this case the principles of Marxism are not changed but the situation becomes much more complex.  (Sartre, Search for a Method pg 38)

READING NOTES: "Room 34", the second chapter of Part I of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

READING NOTES

"Room 34", the second chapter of Part I of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
12/6/09


What do you think about numbers?

Do you believe in numerology?

Do you believe in coincidence?

Kismet?

Fate?

Would you like to do a numerological reading of chapter 2 of Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" with me?

I think it might be interesting. Join me.

READING NOTES: BEING AND NOTHINGNESS by JEAN PAUL SARTRE. Pages 619 through 629.

12/1/09 through 12/2/09


Reading notes on BEING AND NOTHINGNESS by JEAN PAUL SARTRE. Pages 619 through 629.
"Part II. Freedom and Facticity: The Situation"

Part 1: The problem is set forth.

"Much more than [one] appears "to make [oneself]," [one] seems "to be made' by climate and the earth, race and class, language, the history of the collectivity of which [one] is a part, heredity, the individual circumstances of his childhood, acquired habits, the great and small events of life" (619 BN).

Mailboxes

"Frost" by Thomas Bernhard

There was construction going on down there on such a scale that you couldn't say "how it was possible." The engineer had told him some numbers. Dates. Dimensions. "Staggering," said the painter. "Over a thousand workmen are crawling around like ants down there." And indirectly the work would occupy and pay the wages of tens, of hundreds of thousands. "The money invested here goes into billions." The state knew how to exploit its sources , and apply its science. It was "glorious." But down there, "and not just down there either, there is a development in progress that will turn everything upside down." Technology was continually revolutionizing itself. "Come on," he said, "let's step outside. Perhaps we'll be able to see something."

We went outside. But there was nothing to be seen but a thickening pall of gray in front of our eyes. "I want to see the funeral today, from my vantage point over the pass," he said. "They're burying the grocer."

"Frost"

Thomas Bernhard 1963

A game I call "quarters"

Selection from Post Card Collection 1

Possibly the most interesting thing about this postcard is that my grandmother spelled my last name wrong.

Tolstoy the Existentialist

The pain "in the side" refers to Christ.  In a sense, it is a reinterpretation of Christ's story filtered through a modern, banal perspective.  Good stuff.

Albert Hofmann in the Clearing of Being

Albert Hofmann in the Clearing of Being

There are experiences that most of us are hesitant to speak about, because they do not conform to everyday reality and defy rational explanation. These are not particular external occurrences, but rather events of our inner lives, which are generally dismissed as figments of the imagination and barred from our memory. Suddenly, the familiar view of our surroundings is transformed in a strange, delightful, or alarming way: it appears to us in a new light, takes on a special meaning. Such an experience can be as light and fleeting as a breath of air, or it can imprint itself deeply upon our minds

One enchantment of that kind, which I experienced in childhood, has remained remarkably vivid in my memory ever since. It happened on a May morning—I have forgotten the year—but I can still point to the exact spot where it occurred, on a forest path on Martinsberg above Baden, Switzerland. As I strolled through the freshly greened woods filled with bird song and lit up by the morning sun, all at once everything appeared in an uncommonly clear light. Was this something I had simply failed to notice before? Was I suddenly discovering the spring forest as it actually looked? It shone with the most beautiful radiance, speaking to the heart, as though it wanted to encompass me in its majesty. I was filled with an indescribable sensation of joy, oneness, and blissful security.