What does it mean to be an intellectual? What is it like to feel oneself an intellectual? Is it a public role or a more private, secluded vocation, a contemplative and quiet way of life? While 100 years ago the Dominican preacher and philosopher Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges emphasized the need for solitude (although, not isolation) if … Continue reading Spreading the Word: What Is an Intellectual?
Sertillanges on Intellectual Life
One hundred years ago (in 1921), Dominican preacher and philosopher Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges wrote a book that is still read today. Its title, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods, reveals its focus on practical guidance to anyone wishing to pursue the intellectual vocation. Here is a short passage from the book: "One is not dazzled, … Continue reading Sertillanges on Intellectual Life
Spreading the Word: Longest Art Gallery
Are we ready to prioritise cultural heritage over commercial interest? It is a question of values. More specifically - it is a matter of deciding how to resolve a clash between an intrinsic and instrumental value. Pondering this may reveal the values we live by, perhaps without fully recognising them. In today's post, I share … Continue reading Spreading the Word: Longest Art Gallery
Spreading the Word: Healing Inherited Traumas
A family tree is an interesting metaphor. Each new generation inherits something from its ancestors through genetic connections, just like every new branch grows out of the one before it. While each branch is different from the rest, just like any family member is unique, all are linked through the tree trunk to their shared … Continue reading Spreading the Word: Healing Inherited Traumas
Hell Is Other People: What Did Sartre Mean?
French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously said, "Hell is other people". This quote appears towards the end of Sartre's play Huis Clos (No Exit), first published in 1944. A disenchanted and desperate verdict; it comes from one of the three characters trapped together in one room. Without giving too much away, let me say that the play's … Continue reading Hell Is Other People: What Did Sartre Mean?
Quote for the Day
It is all right for the mayflies. It is all right if you know you only have another thirty or fourty years. You can afford to think small. You can find it easy to imagine that you are a fixed thing, inside a fixed nation, with a fixed flag, and a fixed outlook. You can … Continue reading Quote for the Day
Is Transhumanism Very Human?
"Transhumanism, social and philosophical movement devoted to promoting the research and development of robust human-enhancement technologies. Such technologies would augment or increase human sensory reception, emotive ability, or cognitive capacity as well as radically improve human health and extend human life spans. Such modifications resulting from the addition of biological or physical technologies would be … Continue reading Is Transhumanism Very Human?
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Spreading the Word: Midlife Crisis
For this weekend, I share with you a lecture by Professor Mark Jackson on midlife crisis. It is an interesting take on this now so broadly used concept. In the lecture, Prof Jackson looks into the roots of the idea and discovers that they are interwoven with both biology and culture. Link to the video: … Continue reading Spreading the Word: Midlife Crisis
Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha” on Seeking and Finding
Towards the end of his life, the main protagonist of Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha, the wise man, shared one of his thoughts with a friend: “When someone seeks," said Siddhartha, "then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because … Continue reading Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha” on Seeking and Finding
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