Studies in a Dying Culture

I began this post a few months ago, which since languished as an abandoned draft.  All that was there was: The nauseation continues, this time in a major reference tool, the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, to wit: Chinese philosophy by David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames This site http://texttribe.com no longer exists. The Wayback [...]

I am reminded of this unpleasant subject by some unfinished and new business. I have yet to complete a draft of a blog entry on this wretched journal: Contemporary Chinese Thought, Volume 37, Number 4, Summer 2006 I also have for review this book, which seems to be based on dubious premises characteristic of the [...]

Edited from original of 08 July 2006: Cook, Daniel J. “Marx’s Critique Of Philosophical Language,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 42 (June 1982): 530-554. ABSTRACT: Though Marx never systematically developed a theory of language, he often commented in his pre-1848 writings on the role of language in traditional philosophies and ideologies. In this paper, I examine [...]

I have not published a reading review since June 2007. Instead of beginning with July, I’ll work my way backward. At the moment there is too much non-book material to document readily, so this is an effort at compiling a list of books I’ve read part or all of since the beginning of March. I [...]

This is the big idea for our time! Honan, Mathew. “Concoct a Best-Seller With Wired‘s Patent-Pending Big-Idea Book Generator,” Wired Magazine, Issue 15.10, 09.25.07. I discovered this brilliant article in January. It’s more than an article; it both characterizes the “idea” sector of the culture industry and enhances its productivity. I envy the author’s ability [...]

More Vonnegut When I picked up Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake (New York: G.P. Putnam’s, 1997) off my table for the first time, I thought this might be a throwaway book. I was wrong; it was hilarious, and there’s much in there. It is a combination memoir and science fiction tale. A whole decade has to be [...]

Cornel West, Marxism & morality West, Cornel. The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1991. West wrote this in the late 1970s, before he became a star. The exposition of the development of the Young Marx is good. He presents interesting information on Engels, Kautsky, and Lukàcs, but his thesis contrasting [...]

[Deepening Democracy in Global Contexts, Chapter One] Achieving Our Country, Achieving Our World: Baldwin, Rorty, and Social Hope Judith M. Green, Fordham University If anything shows up the ideological nature and ultimate uselessness of pragmatism, this review does, first, by exposing the selective attention, nostalgia, myth-making and wish-fulfillment upon which Rorty’s social vision rests, and [...]

I just discovered that paremiology is the study of proverbs. Without naming this as a field of study myself, in one way or another I’ve occupied myself with this genre. Perhaps my first contact with what others had to say about it was through Esperanto. Zamenhof, who created the language, authored a book, Proverbaro, which [...]