Adorno on Teutonic “depth”
“The appearance of depth is frequently the product of a complicity with suffering. A monstrous German tradition associates profound thoughts with the theodicy of evil and death. A theological terminus ad quem is tacitly assumed, as if what determined the dignity of an idea were its result, the confirmation of transcendence, or its immersion in [...]
June 2007 reading review (2): Vonnegut, Marxism, positivism
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 [...]
John Horgan’s ‘Rational Mysticism’
Attempting to be more than Man We become less . . .” –William Blake, The Four Zoas, Night the Ninth In re: Horgan, John. Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border Between Science and Spirituality. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. Table of contents Publisher description Introduction See also: Debunking Enlightenment, book review by Thomas W. Clark, Free [...]
Arthur Danto on Mysticism and Morality
Danto, Arthur C. Mysticism and Morality: Oriental Thought and Moral Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. Orig. 1972. 1. Factual Beliefs and Moral Rules 2. Karma and Caste 3. Brahma, Boredom, and Release 4. Therapy and Theology in Buddhist Thought 5. The Discipline of Action in the Bhagavad Gita 6. Conforming to the Way [...]
