Spinoza’s Hatchet and the Ethics of Objecthood      By Richard Mather       “For the only perfection and the final purpose [...] of an instrument is to duly fulfil the duties that are assigned to them. For instance, when a carpenter finds himself best served by his hatchet in the construction of a piece of work, then has his hatchet attained its end and perfection; but if he were to think, ‘This hatchet has now served me so well that I will let it rest and not require any mor

Atoms and Void There is no body without void – Epicurus You’d have thought it endless, Lucretius— The laminar descent of atoms Falling through a void serene and mute, Each atom unhurried, alone, Descending at a constant pace, Unmoved by force, untouched by will, No dawn to break their quiet fall, No god to stir the silent dark. But then—a swerve, a subtle bend, Two atoms veer, incline, and meet, A fragile sign of nascent will, A fracture within fate’s perf

Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life [complete] New on Academia.edu (DOC) Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life [complete]

I See a Red Rose     “I see a red rose” shows us three things –  “I” – a simple fact of consciousness   Or awareness;  “See” – shows the...

Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life (Part Four) Published on Academia.edu (DOC) Wittgenstein's...

The Selfish Self     I am my world – A world apart.   Apart from me there is nothing.   The world is mine.   It arises from the...

Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life (Part Three) Published on Academia.edu (DOC) Wittgenstein's...

Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life (Part Two) New monograph on Academia.edu (DOC) Wittgenstein's...

Ludwig Wittgenstein Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life (Part One) New monograph on Academia.edu...

What the Mirror Said     I am the image and you are the body.  In the mirror we appear complete;  We are whole: two as one.  For a few...

A Vagabond Jew from Lithuania: A Poem on Salomon Maimon It took a vagabond Jew from Lithuania   to strike the wick that Königsberg’s sage   had hid and let go out in dark’s old age.     Said the synagogue’s rude son:   Let there be German with a Yiddish tongue ,   and from his restless mind   concepts flowed   like fire onto the page.     With quid facti?  and  quid juris?    as his lamps,   he lit the lecture halls   and shadowed nooks   of Europe with flame incandescent,  

Words like mosquitoes swarming / Around me, pestering

What is language? Where does it come from and what does it want (from us)?

Not the growing stem or the leaf blowing in the wind; not the opening bud or the emerging radicle; not the fourfold root yearning for water.

I am only fully actual when determined in all of my parts, when I am the sum of all predicates that can be attributed to me. Only then I...

If water is the primal origin of all things (as the ancient Greek sage Thales of Miletus supposed), then considering how hard it is to...

What fact makes a principle true? Quid Facti. That is the question.

I am nothing and you are nothing. but the relation between us isn’t nothing. Infinitesimally small differences establish the continuity...

Said the professor — I am in a vortex, a maelstrom, below the eye’s surface, standing on the abyssal plain, the fundament of all that is....

In the Beginning Was Strange to think I am the universe and everything in it too. I call out. No voice returns other than my echo. So...