Sam Harris On Contemporary Civilization's Chronic Dissatisfaction (well, the atheists at least)

What remains "vivid and intoxicating" to us is very short lived. And we're constantly seeking more. This is civilization's chronic dissatisfaction. Sam Harris is talking about it in the clip below, and it's nothing new, but he's speaking to a group of people (atheists) least inclined to buy these sorts of ideas, so he has to make it palatable, and he does it ever so eloquently.

This is why I'm an aesthete - trying to maintain those sources of pleasure and satisfaction on a constant basis. Reiterating pleasures and avoiding pains.
"Is it possible to be happy BEFORE gratification?"
"This question lies at the periphery of human consciousness" Harris thinks.
Maybe there's an ounce of dignity in having the self-awareness to know so surely, of myself, that without these sources of pleasure I'd be fucked.
It's difficult to help but wonder if Mr.Harris isn't implementing some strategy he's had for a long time...

"The Pragmatist Family Portrait"

Will someone please make a picture? I'll do it with Paint later...

The line is a reference to the following from Susan Haack's Pragmatism: Old and New

"Rorty has no qualms about simply cutting Peirce out of the pragmatist family portrait, dismissing him as 'just another whacked-out triadomaniac'" (54).

"triadomaniac"?

Prag & Pos

Strange, the proximity of Pragmatism to Positivism, and how the Positivists are so detestable, and how Pragmatists are so lovable.

Derek Jarman's Wittgenstein (Clip)

He stops rowing. Nothing but the sound of lapping water, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, which is actually obviously just some kind of warehouse with a giant tub in it. Nothing. Ever-pleased to be away from society, and away from other people, with a smile of relief and satisfaction, he asks himself what he presumably believes to be the first, most pressing and important question: "Hau caahnd ey bee a logiihcian befoore ey ahm a humand beeingh?"

See for yourself:

When...

When the music stops, which it almost never does, serenity is the sound of boiling water.

Marie Antoinette Before 10:00 AM

The body is good for business. Coercion of the senses. Take your vitamins, all in good intention of course.

Philosophy is taming a unicorn

Philosophy graduate students appear to have blogs. I thought perhaps I should start one.