Philosophize This!

that's the title of her book that we're talking about today The Monarchy of Fear

fear is also an emotion that when left unexamined is fundamentally toxic to the processes of democracy in particular

if you're wondering why our democratic institutions seem less capable of solving our political problems than they've been in the past we have to consider this fact that we have an emotional climate of fear that's better suited to make a monarchy work well than it is to make a democracy work well

the arts offer bridges to sing human diversity as joyful funny tragic delightful not as a horrible fate to be shunned

good works need hope

the government that governs best governs least

it is not a man's duty as a matter of course to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong. He may still properly have other concerns to engage him, but it is his duty at least to wash his hands of it. And if he gives it no thought longer not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see at least that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first that he may pursue his contemplations too,

most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meager life than the poor.

the government does not concern me much and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It's not many moments that I live under a government even in this world. If a man is thought free, meaning free in his thinking, fancy free, imagination free, that which is not never for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him,

my recreation, my predilection, my cure after all Platonism has always been Thucydides

...strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.

slavery, even in this case, will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent,

But what I love about Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus is that he talks about the process of discovering that void for the first time.

We live in a universe that's so inconceivably large and complex and of a scope that we as human beings can't even wrap our heads around. We live out our lives with every step we take. We're fighting against a tidal wave of things that are trying to kill us at any moment.

Camus gives two main strategies that Sisyphus uses to be happy.

Camus would say that as outsiders if we could somehow sit on the sidelines and watch Sisyphus push the boulder up the hill over and over again it would no doubt look to us like a totally meaningless torturous insane thing that Sisyphus is being forced to do.

With such frequent and ordinary examples passing before our eyes, how can we possibly rid ourselves of the thought of death and of the idea that at every moment it is gripping us by the throat?

Physicians have this advantage. The sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.

For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way. Its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.

Why may not a goose say thus? The earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me. The stars have their influence upon me. I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters. There is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favorably as me. I am the darling of nature. Is it not man that keeps and serves me?

if anyone had asked me what existence was, I would have answered in good faith that it was nothing. Simply an empty form which was added to external things without changing anything in their nature.

Existence had suddenly unveiled itself. It had lost the harmless look of an abstract category. It was the very paste of things.

This root was needed into existence or rather the root, the park gates, the bench, the sparse grass, all that had vanished.

The diversity of things, their individuality were only an appearance, a veneer. This veneer had melted leaving soft monstrous masses all in disorder, naked in a frightful obscene nakedness.

I kept myself from making the slightest movement, but I didn't need to move in order to see behind the trees, the blue columns and the lampposts of the bandstand and the veleta. In the midst of a mountain of laurel, all these objects, how can I explain? They inconvenienced me. I would have liked them to exist less strongly, more dryly, in a more abstract way with more reserve.

In Nietzsche's first book, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche makes the case that great artwork has represented in it both the energies of Dionysus and Apollo.

this is what Nietzsche writes about in his book on the genealogy of morality, that around this time of Socrates, the religion of Zoroastrianism that would later go on to influence Judaism and Christianity, well it no doubt had an influence on Plato's thinking around this time too.

Who can recall to me the sins I committed as a baby? For in your sight no man is free from sin, not even a child who has lived only one day on earth.

I went to Carthage where I found myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lust, bodily desire like a morass and adolescent sex welling up within me exuded mists which clouded over and obscured my heart so that I could not distinguish the clear light of true love from the murk of lust. This was the age at which the frenzy gripped me and I surrendered myself entirely to lust which your law forbids but human hearts are not ashamed to sanction.

But my sin was this, that I looked for pleasure, beauty, and truth not in him but in myself and his other creatures, and the search led me instead to pain, confusion, and error.

My soul speaks with truth when it confesses to you that I do measure time. Is it the case then, Lord my God, that I perform the act of measuring but do not know what I am measuring? I measure the motion of a body in time. Is it the case that I do not measure the time itself?

It is inaccurate to say there are three tenses of time, past, present, and future. Though it might properly be said, there are three tenses of times, the present of past things, the present of present things, the present of future things. These are three realities in the mind, but nowhere else as far as I can see, for the present of past things is memory, the present of present things is attention, and the present of future things is expectation. If we are allowed to put it that way, then I do see three tenses or times, and I admit that they are three.

He's a mathematician turned philosopher, a mathematician fascinated by the level of certainty we can have when we say things like one plus one equals two. And he wants to try emulate this process of mathematical certainty and apply it to thinking, the goal being to arrive at certainty about things.

in his book Rules for the Direction of the Mind, he talks about taking clear and distinct propositions and linking them together in the same sort of way a mathematician might say something like, okay well one plus one equals two. All right now two plus five equals seven. We know that, right? Okay now seven times four equals twenty-eight.

You know, when David Hume writes an Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, who really is to say that if David Hume lived for another few years and composed another book, this one called An Inquiry Concerning Squirrel Understanding or Raccoon Understanding, who's to say that it wouldn't have been the exact same book?

the symposium was a fictional book written by the Greek philosopher Plato about a dinner party. It's a dinner party where various noteworthy figures from Athens at the time all meet up to talk about a particular subject.

Diatema told Socrates about how she sees love as sort of a progression. It's a progression ascending up rungs of a ladder where throughout your various experiences with love in your life, you go through a number of phases.

In Peter Singer's book, The Most Good You Can Do, he advocates 10% of your income.