The naming of the predicament of the self by art is its reversal. Hence the salvific effect of art. Through art, the predicament of self becomes not only speakable but laughable. Helen Keller and any two-year-old and Kafka’s friends laughed when the unnameable was named. Kafka and his friends laughed when he read his stories…
Yet they, the lay scientists, those who perceive themselves in the community of scientists and at some remove from the ordinary world, may be better off than those who live immanent lives, beneficiaries of science and technology, but with only a glimmering of the scientists, the glimmering that there are scientists and that “they” know…
Self as Transcendent. In a post-religious age, the only transcendence open to the self is self-transcendence, that is, the transcending of the world by the self. The available modes of transcendence in such an age are science and art. 00000 Reentry problems become noticeable in less inspired scientists. The divorced wife of an astronomer at the…
As a consequence of the unprecedented appearance of the triad in the Cosmos, there appeared for the first time in fifteen billion years (as far as we know) a creature which is ashamed of itself and which seeks cover in myriad disguises. One semioticist defined the subject of his study as the only organism which…
Born on this day existentialismphilosophical literatureWalker Percy
I will not try to decide here whether what the word apple conjures up in your mind, its signifié, is a percept or a concept, because it is somewhere in between, A percept refers to an individual apple. A concept is an abstraction from all apples, a definition of apple. But the signifié of apple…
Sorry to learn of the death of Peter Lawler. Here are a couple of obits here and here and his wiki page. Alexis de TocquevilleCatholicismpeter lawlerPolitical philosophyWalker Percy
