Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

The Parthians were the folks who ran a large part of what we now call Iran as the Hellenistic kingdom in the region, the Seleucids, was fading away.  The Parthians were known for a trick they perfected in heated battles, when it was necessary for some part of their line to make a retreat.  They learned to fire a terrible volley of arrows in one direction while moving in the other -- creating what later writers would call a "covering fire" that kept their foes at bay while they could re-organize. This sort of volley became known for a long time as a "Parthian shot," although in English that got simplified and dumbed down over time into ... "parting shot."  

Mitch McConnell is effectively out of the action. The only evidence he is still alive available to the public seems to be a "proof of life" photo arranged for just that purpose, and that seems something that could easily be faked with a little ingenuity. I understand that there is a key deadline coming up: August 3.  If McConnell is found incapable of performing his duties as Senator before that date, a special; election would be called. But if McConnell is still Senator on August 3 and departs for incapacity thereafter, there would be no special election and the seat would simply remain vacant until January.   McConnell is not running for re-election.  The Republicans of Kentucky nominated Andy Barr to replace him in a May primary and Barr has the advantage over Democratic contender Charels Booker.  I suspect we will know more by then. The Republicans generally would expect to be able to keep the seat were any special election held -- maybe just get Barr into o...

I believe it was Bertrand Russell who asked: if there is a "problem of evil" why is there not a "problem of good"? His answer was that there is a problem of evil only for those whose premises make evil seem anomalous.   Following up that thought: If I believed that the world is the creation of the evil Cthulhu, designed to make us miserable and mad, why are there good and joyful moments?  Why does Cthulhu let Bach's music slip through into ontology? Why are we allowed to take and feel such pride in our child's growth and accomplishments, if we are supposed to be miserable? My guess is that different Cthulhu-ists have different opinions. Schopenhauer's Will might be thought to raise the same question.  But he might say that the Will preserves its own existence by preserving our generational cycles, so allowing the pride of parenthood is a necessary price the Will must pay to continue to have humans whom it can torture. As to music? it may have played a ro...

The "problem of evil" in broadest terms is the problem of how to account for the existence of evil within systems of thought that would seem to exclude it -- that may identify reality with goodness in one way or another. Within Christian thought these efforts are generally called "theodicy.'  But the problem precedes Christian efforts. Plato, for example, postulated a Form of the Good that is the most real of realities.  This means that he starkly identified Good with Real, and THAT raises the question of -- why isn't it?  Or not so much. When the neoplatonists came along a couple of centuries later and strove to put Platon's thoughts into more systematic form, tried to make linear treatises out of hints from not especially linear dialogs, they found this question staring at them. If the Good is the sun (Plato's metaphor in his culminating story of an escape from the cave) then evil is presumably the darkness: shade.  Yet how decode this metaphor? What is...

  I could have told them that at Ford.  But I guess they had to learn it on their own. https://newrepublic.com/article/212671/data-centers-americans-hate-ai

  On the off chance that anyone who has anything to do with the Democratic Party in Maine is reading this ... first, shame on you.  I used to identify as a dissident Republican, way back when that meant John Anderson ... and in large part because of that autobiographical fact, I would love to see Senator Collins removed from public life.  She is the master (too gendered?) -- the prodigy at pretending to be that sort of Republican -- but always backing down and falling in line when it matters.  Her games playing helped give us DOBBS v. JACKSON effectively extinguishing the privacy right from the 14th amendment.   [No, they haven't overturned GRISWOLD yet -- but I wouldn't want a test case on that to come before this court anytime soon.]  Anyway it was important, my hypothetical Maine-Dem-operative reader, for you lot to come up with someone solid who could run against Collins this year.  You had ONE JOB!!! Boy did you fail on that. And don't ask me...