Tallinn: Ptarmigan, the art in social
A line of thought recently kicking round my head has been the characterisation of disciplines according to the manner in which they express experience of reality – dance through movement, philosophy rational argument, music sound and so on and such. As a strict categorisation the notion is overtly simple (I would suggest as any...
A Writing habit
According to Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Thinking about writing habits, I am reminded of the age-old adage of “practice makes perfect,” and although a hackneyed phrase, its over-use is not without reason. There is truth in the belief that when one hasn’t written...
A Defence of Philosophy: Reason and Imagination
In his essay, ‘A Defence of Poetry’, Shelley distinguishes reason from imagination in the following way: “Reason respects the differences, and imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance.” Although Shelley had poetry in mind when...
Novels and ‘the holy contour of life’
In his 30 point Belief and Technique for modern prose Jack Kerouac exhorts writers to ‘Believe in the holy contour of life’ and to be ‘Writer-Director of earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven.’ It seems almost impossible to dream of a modern, adult novel that contains no element of spirituality or moral questioning. Yet...
No truth’s a panacea
Just sometimes the big questions turn out not to be all that important. One such issue to get my goat lately is the battle between absolutists and relativists, each a pejorative from the opposite perspective each accusing the other’s epistemology of ushering in untold injustice, social harm and moral degradation. It is thinking about this...
Neighbours
Within a certain house, There is a basement; this dark hell breathes of blood. A dried paste covers walls and the floors, Made for paintings, decorates doors. Dying fetuses that lie upon the ferruled children, Rusty metal fragments drilled to the top of heads, Sticky liquid consumptions of stomach juices,...
Kneejerks – Media and Instant Opinion
The media is a powerful force in everything that we do today. Newspapers are read on buses and trains as we travel from one place to another. The radio or television is turned on at breakfast and again in the evening. The internet is accessed and searched at work and in lunch breaks. The world...
The Misuse of Philosophy
When I was on holiday recently, I was in a clothing store shopping for some cheapish t shirts for my daughter. I picked out a couple and took them to wait in the everlasting queue for the checkout. As I was standing there, I stood and looked at the things I was about to buy....
