More specifically concerning: freedom
Pacem supplices petunt
2 November 2002, around 16.11.
Explorers of the past are never quite free. The past is their tyrant. It forbids them to know anything which it has not itself, consciously or otherwise, yielded to them. —Marc Bloch (Apologie pour l’Histoire, ou Métier d’Historien, (194–) From the translation of P. Putnam, p. 59. * Livy II.49.12, of the Veientes in the […]
periplum
30 June 2004, around 8.00.
Postcard (from the editor of the text to his godmother) found in a copy of ‘Urne Buriall’ and ‘The Garden of Cyrus’ … according to the notion I have of reason, neither the written treatises of the learned nor the set discourses of the eloquent are able of themselves to teach the use of it. […]
1456
24 May 2007, around 11.33.
They took away sixteen boxes of books, a future, a past & a half-baked dream, and left a bill of sale, a cheque, and an increasing sense of freedom.
fugit
16 January 2020, around 5.04.
There is a feeling of relief, drawing near the front of the line at the movie theatre and seeing the clerk post a small notice that the next showing is sold out. It is the same thrill one gets when, after planning a meeting or outing, the other person calls or texts or writes and […]
recursus
29 March 2021, around 8.01.
Isaiah Berlin makes a decision.
Citation (67)
11 May 2021, around 9.39.
consciousness and memory…
ianua
14 January 2022, around 5.41.
Christmas day. Light snow overnight, everything looking somewhat magical – clear and fresh. We plan a walk to the river, because it is a challenge getting the dog to cross the highway, but later she can run off-leash without the likelihood of encountering anybody (though who would one expect to encounter at just after sunup […]
Citation (72)
2 April 2023, around 8.16.
living with things.
wandering
4 June 2023, around 18.40.
Employing his broad conception of self-consciousness and his distinction between physical and moral freedom, he argues that the data of self-consciousness cannot establish moral freedom. At best, self-consciousness can reveal physical freedom, such as, after work I could go to the library, go home, go to the coffee house, or decide to flee my miserable […]
procedural
11 August 2023, around 4.37.
…only a particular concatenation of circumstances will reveal that one man always acts in a good way because his instinctual inclinations compel him to, and the other is good only in so far and for so long as such cultural behaviour is advantageous for his own selfish purposes. But superficial acquaintance with an individual will […]
Adversaria (20)
30 November 2024, around 4.47.
‘The greatest opportunity anybody can have is to live in a free society as one among many who are fully capable of taking advantage of its freedom; but to take advantage of that opportunity, each must develop the cooperative virtues of good faith and benevolence’ —Alan Donagan (‘Spinoza’s Theology’ in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, […]