Keyword: Author

. . . Respect is the homage one pays to the order itself, rather than to the individuals. The first condition for a smooth-running social order in respect for it ~ Page 202

A Note of Method Depression, under various names and in various guises, is and has always been ubiquitous for biochemical and social reasons. . . . If it sometimes seems that depression is the private affliction of the modrn Western middle classes, that is because it is in this community that we are suddenly acquiring new sophistication to recognize depression, to name it, to treat it, and to accept it -- and not because we have any special rights to the complaint itself. .. . . We can never…

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) is best known as a co-editor, with Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, of the ‘Encyclopedie’ --a monument to rationalist, secularist, and humanist thought of the French Enlightenment. The central project in all his writing was to dispel supernatural and theistic superstitions and to ground all phenomena in naturalistic explanations. That this could lead to panpsychism is perhaps surprising. Like LaMattrie and Maupertuis before him, Diderot grappled with a fundamental problem:…

The 'Penguin English Dictionary' defines a delusion as 'a false belief o impression'. Surprisingly the illustrative quotation the dictionary gives is from phillip e Johnson: "Darwinism is the story of humanity's liberation from the delusion that its destiny is controlled by a power higher than itself" Can that be the same Phillip E Johnson who leads the creationist charge against Darwinism in America today? Indeed it is, and the quotation is, as we might guess, taken out of context. I hope the f…

“Invidia” between creator and creature can be directly competitive. Mythologies, so often a shorthand for logic, bear witness. A lighthearted maiden boasts of spinning a web more delicate, more prodigal of adornment that any Athena can weave. She is turned into a spider. Apollo flays alive his rival in the mysteries and performance of music. Inevitably, the Agon, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agon the duel, is reciprocal. The human creator senses that his achievements, however exalted, fall short of wha…