"Transcending all goals, reflection wonders, "What's the use?" There then blazes forth the absurdity of a life which has sought outside of itself the justifications which it alone could give itself. Detached from the freedom which might have genuinely grounded them, all the ends that have been pursued appear arbitrary and useless."Simone de Beauvoir in … Continue reading Freedom to Give Meaning
Role of Imagination: Social Imaginary
What is the source of our imagination? Where do the images or representations of our imaginations come from? Are we entirely autonomous and self-governed in terms of what we (can/not) imagine? Is it perhaps a unique talent that some are born with while others are considered ‘less creative’? Or is imagination a skill that can be trained … Continue reading Role of Imagination: Social Imaginary
Revisiting: Quote About Truth and Its Seekers
An inspiring quote about truth and how to seek it
Crisis of Meaning as Crisis of Imagination
If storytelling is the human way of creating a meaningful whole out of fragmented moments, then a crisis of meaning signals a crisis of story - in other words, a crisis of narrative. But how do we come up with stories? I do not mean this or that particular content, but the plots and combinations … Continue reading Crisis of Meaning as Crisis of Imagination
Food For Thought From Baruch Spinoza
What is your usual way of reacting to another person's actions or words? Where do you start? If we are honest with ourselves (at least ourselves), how often do we begin with a genuine effort to understand the other? “I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to … Continue reading Food For Thought From Baruch Spinoza
Whose Monster Is It Anyway?
“Most strangers, gods and monsters - along with various ghosts, phantoms and doubles who bear a family resemblance - are, deep down, tokens of fracture within the human psyche. They speak to us of how we are split between conscious and unconscious, familiar and unfamiliar, same and other. And they remind us that we have … Continue reading Whose Monster Is It Anyway?
A Thought on History and Identity
“The past is a cemetery of promises which havenot been kept.”Paul Ricoeur Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) was a French philosopher who contributed to combining phenomenological descriptions of human reality with hermeneutic interpretations. The way I experience something and the way I make sense of it influence each other and are interwoven into one whole. This thinking … Continue reading A Thought on History and Identity
Can We Suspend Our Assumptions?
Edmund Husserl, the founder of the philosophical tradition called phenomenology, introduced the idea of bracketing or suspending our habitual assumptions about the world. He called this method by the Greek word epoché, which has deep historical roots stretching to the ancient Greek philosophy of scepticism that emphasised suspension of judgments. Importantly for Husserl, his method … Continue reading Can We Suspend Our Assumptions?
Human: a Continuous Project
Michel de Montaigne, in his essay 'That Men by Various Ways Arrive at the Same End', paints a conflicted portrait of human nature: "Man (in good earnest) is a marvelous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment."Michel de Montaigne Very hard indeed - … Continue reading Human: a Continuous Project
Are There Value-Free Facts?
When I say that my cat's name is Vito, I make a factual statement. It describes a state of affairs with seemingly no value judgments involved. The fact that my cat has this name is just that - a value-free fact - and says nothing (cannot say) about what my cat's (or any other cat's) … Continue reading Are There Value-Free Facts?
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