It may be, indeed, that the differences between us lie not so much in the nature of our respective experiences as in our fashion of describing them. – A. J. Ayer, from Philosophical Essays
Archive for December, 2008
The Chemicals Between Us
Posted in Quotes, tagged A J Ayer, Emotivist, Philosophy, Quote on December 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It’s Hard to Forgive Others for Being Like Ourselves
Posted in Quotes, tagged Language, Philosophy, Quotes, Richard Rorty on December 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
For Kundera the way to overcome the urge to domination is to realize that everybody has and always will have this urge, but to insist that nobody is more or less justified in having it than anyone else. Nobody stands for the Truth, or for Being, or for Thinking. Nobody stands for anything Other or [...]
No Such Thing as Language
Posted in Quotes, tagged A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs, Davidson, Language, Philosophy, Quote on December 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
We should realize that we have abandoned not only the ordinary notion of a language, but we have erased the boundary between knowing a language and knowing our way around the world generally. For there are no rules for arriving at passing theories that work. . . . There is no more chance of regularizing, [...]
On Rigor in Science :: J. L. Borges
Posted in Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, tagged Borges, Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges on December 11, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Museum Φ . . . In that Empire, the Art of Cartography reached such Perfection that the map of one Province alone took up the whole of a City, and the map of the empire, the whole of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps did not satisfy and the Colleges of Cartographers set up [...]
Existentialist Ethics
Posted in Quotes, tagged continental philosophy, Existentialism, French Existentialism, Philosophy, Quotes, Simone de Beauvoir on December 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
. . . not only do we assert that the existentialist doctrine permits the elaboration of an ethics, but it even appears to us as the only philosophy in which an ethics has its place. For, in a metaphysics of transcendence, in the classical sense of the term, evil is reduced to error; and in [...]
Gloomy Passivity
Posted in Quotes, tagged Ethics of Ambiguity, Existentialism, French Existentialism, Philosophy, Quote, Simone de Beauvoir on December 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A young man has hoped for a happy or useful or glorious life. If the man he has become looks upon these miscarried attempts of his adolescence with disillusioned indifference, there they are, forever frozen in the dead past. When an effort fails, one declares bitterly that he has lost time and wasted his powers. [...]
The Magnanimous Enemy :: J. L. Borges
Posted in Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Poetry, tagged Borges, Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Poetry on December 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Museum Φ Magnus Barfod, in the year 1102, undertook the general conquest of the kingdoms of Ireland; it is said that on the eve of his death he received this greeting from Muirchertach, king in Dublin: May gold and the storm fight along with you in your armies, Magnus Barfod. Tomorrow, in the fields of [...]
Limits :: J. L. Borges
Posted in Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Poetry, tagged Add new tag, Borges, Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Poetry on December 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Museum Φ There is a line in Verlaine I shall not recall again, There is a street close by forbidden to my feet, There’s a mirror that’s seen me for the very last time, There is a door that I have locked till the end of the world. Among the books in my library (I [...]
Quatrain :: J. L. Borges
Posted in Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Poetry, tagged Borges, Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Poetry on December 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Museum Φ Others died, but it happened in the past, The season (as all men know) most favorable for death. Is it possible that I, subject of Yaqub Almansur, Must die as roses had to die and Aristotle? From Divan of Almoqtadir El Magrebi (12th century) [From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold [...]
The Regret of Heraclitus :: J. L. Borges
Posted in Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Poetry, tagged Borge, Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Poetry on December 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Museum Φ I, who have been so many men, have never been The one in whose embrace Matilde Urbach swooned. Gaspar Camerarius, in Deliciae poetarum Borussiae, VII, 16 [From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland]
Dreamtigers Epiloge :: J. L. Borges
Posted in Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Short Prose, tagged Borges, Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Poetry on December 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
God grant that the essential monotony of this miscellany (which time has compiled – not I -and which admits past pieces that I have not dared to revise, because I wrote them with a different concept of literature) be less evident than the geographical and historical diversity of its themes. Of all the books I [...]
The Poet Declares His Renown :: J. L. Borges
Posted in Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Poetry, tagged Borges, Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges, Poetry on December 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Museum Φ The circle of the sky metes out my glory, The libraries of the East contend for my poems, Emirs seek me out to fill my mouth with gold, Angels already know by heart my latest ghazal. My working tools are humiliation and an anguish; Would to God I’d been stillborn. From the Divan [...]
Quantum Mechanics of a Lonely Heart
Posted in Poetry, Quotes, tagged Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold, Poem, Poetry on December 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
. . . the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help from pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, [...]
Giacomo Joyce :: James Joyce
Posted in Short Prose, tagged Giacomo Joyce, James Joyce, Joyce, Reflections on December 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
[Numbers in brackets indicate the ends of the pages of Joyce's original manuscript notebook.] * Who? A pale face surrounded by heavy odorous furs. Her movements are shy and nervous. She uses quizzing- glasses. Yes: a brief syllable. A brief laugh. A brief beat of the eyelids. Cobweb handwriting, traced long and fine with quiet [...]
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