Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

  The NDPR has two new reviews of book about Nietzsche up.  One concerns FN's "philosophical psychology." The book is the work of Mattei Riccardi. The review comes to us from Christopher Fowles, of the University of Oxford.  I will merely drop in this passage from Fowles: Consciousness has been the locus of much discussion regarding Nietzsche’s philosophy of mind, and not without reason. The inadequacy of conscious thought and the threat posed by the misunderstandings it engenders are central themes in Nietzsche’s mature writings. Furthermore, his remarks are perplexing. Nietzsche presents consciousness as at once a danger—error-strewn, superficial, misleading—and a nullity, of little consequence in contrast to the sub-conscious interplay of drives and affects. One might reasonably wonder if these can be reconciled without Nietzsche being guilty of some egregiously misleading overstatement. Riccardi’s picture, however, promises a solution. Nietzsche, we are told, should b...

And so the utmost a student of sociology can ever predict is that if a genius of a certain sort show the way, society will be sure to follow. It might long ago have been predicted with great confidence that both Italy and Germany would reach a stable unity if someone could but succeed in starting the process. It could not have been predicted, however, that the modus operandi in each case would be subordination to a paramount state rather than federation, because no historian could have calculated the freaks of birth and fortune which gave at the same moment such positions of authority to such peculiar individuals as Napoleon III, Bismarck, and Cavour. William James, "Great Men and their Environment," 1880. James was here rehabilitating something akin to the Carlylean theory of history as a set of the biographies of certain extraordinary individuals. Not exactly Carlylean -- there are important differences -- but this passage indicates the real similarity. Napoleon II...

If you wanted to write the recent history of global oil markets, and you wanted to take a Carlylean (or Jamesian) view thereof, who are the outstanding individuals on whose work you might focus? Working from a recent WSJ feature, here are six: Nikolay Buynov: Russian entrepreneur Mohammad al-Sabban: Saudi economist/consultant Gary C. Evans: US/Texas based CEO Yin Shenping: China, entrepreneur on the oil/IT interface Scott Saxberg: Canadian CEO involved in oil sands Adnan al-Janabi: Business & political figure in post-war Iraq. Because I'm feeling lazy, I'll leave you with the list, and a photo of Janabi, above. He's the one on the right.

I recently encountered the following quotation (never mind where): "Nature is the living, visible garment of God." This was attributed with some confidence (but without further specificity) to the German romantic poet/.philosopher Goethe. I googled the phrase "visible garment of God" curious about particulars. It gets 31,000 hits. But if you follow some of them you'll soon find that there are quotes of quotes of quotes . I began to understand Abe Lincoln's frustration when he said, "I never said most of the stuff you see me quoted as saying on the internet." I persisted in my inquiries. It turns out that Goethe had a character say something LIKE this, but that wording is due to another romantic poet/philosophy, Thomas Carlyle. In FAUST, Goethe had a character called Erdgeist (Earth Spirit) say: "I walk and work, above, beneath, work and weave ... 'tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, and weave for God the Garment thou sees...