Praymont

LATEST ARTICLES ( 235 )

• Peter De Florez, Mystery Man Behind MIT's De Florez Fund for Humor

  Sept. 29 is the deadline for applications to MIT's De Florez Fund for Humor, which "was created in 1988 by MIT alumnus Peter de Florez '38. Read more

  Posted on 23 September 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Popular Post-secondary Programs Among Authoritarian Rulers

  I've compiled a list of what 20th- and 21st-century authoritarian leaders of nation states studied at the post-secondary level. I have not yet fully surveyed... Read more

  Posted on 07 September 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Cutting Sounds (Cicadas, Pt. 3)

  My last post included quotations in which the sound of cicadas was compared to that of a blade-grinding wheel. The blades being sharpened included scissors,... Read more

  Posted on 30 May 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Machine Music (Cicadas, Pt 2)

  

  Poets invoke cicadas as little poets singing with the Muses, but, for many, the mechanical drone of some of these insects is the antithesis of music. Read more

  Posted on 25 March 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Singing Cicadas

  abound in ancient Greece. Already, in the BCE, they sing like a king in Anacreon's "Ode to the Cicada" (6th century) and sing, well, better than donkeys in the... Read more

  Posted on 19 March 2021 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• The High Priori Road

  Let others creep by timid steps, and slow,On plain experience lay foundations low,By common sense to common knowledge bred,And last, to Nature's Cause through... Read more

  Posted on 16 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Ipsedixitism, Part 1

  "Ipsedixitism: dogmatic assertion or assertiveness" (Merriam-Webster). "Ipse dixit: an arbitrary and unsupported assertion" (Collins). "Ipsedixitism: ... Read more

  Posted on 13 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Abundance of Caution

  

  In these challenging times, going forward in an abundance of caution .... Going forward, we show an abundance of caution in these challenging times ... Going... Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Afterwit: Knowledge That Comes Too Late

  Afterwit, a handy word that seems to have faded from common use in the 17th century.The OED offers these two definitions:Recognition of a mistake made earlier,... Read more

  Posted on 11 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Misology - a Hatred of Argument, Reasoning, Or Enlightenment

  

  "Misology: a hatred of argument, reasoning, or enlightenment." That's Merriam-Webster's definition. Closely related is "misologia: an aversion to speaking or... Read more

  Posted on 18 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Misosophy: Hatred of Wisdom. A Label Applied to Voltaire, Schopenhauer,...

  

  Misosophy, n. Hatred of wisdom. So says the OED. The earliest use of the word cited by the OED is in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's posthumously published "Notes of... Read more

  Posted on 16 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Bryon's Quarantine Poem, Another De-motivational Post

  Yesterday, I posted about Leibniz's uninspiring time in quarantine.Byron, too, seems to have derived little from the measure. Like many travelers in the... Read more

  Posted on 15 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Community in Solitude

  

  Catherine Malabou (2020):We know that Karl Marx made fun of eighteenth-century robinsonades like Rousseau’s. Marx said that the origin of the social can by no... Read more

  Posted on 15 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Leibniz in Quarantine

  

  We've heard that Isaac Newton developed calculus while in quarantine. It turns out that another calculus pioneer, Leibniz, was also in quarantine, but much... Read more

  Posted on 14 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Ultracrepidarian

  "Ultracrepidarian: someone who has no special knowledge of a subject but who expresses an opinion about it." (Cambridge Dictionary)A neat word coined by... Read more

  Posted on 11 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Ronald Knox and Gestalt Switches

  Here's Mgr. Ronald Knox using (in 1927) a visual-perception analogy to point out a change in belief that involves no new data but, instead, seeing old data in... Read more

  Posted on 26 January 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Towns in My History (part 2)

  

  I posted about my childhood home of Goderich, a town centred on a round 'Square'. At its hub, which was actually an octagon, the clean lines of an Art Deco... Read more

  Posted on 19 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Monsignor Ronald Knox Anticipating Popper's Critique of Psychoanalysis

  Here's a bit of 'found philosophy' in Monsignor Ronald Arbuthnott Knox's first mystery novel, The Viaduct Murder (1925):If you’re out for [money], I should... Read more

  Posted on 14 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Towns in My History (part 1)

  

  I was born after the first malls had opened, but they still confronted me as a deviation from the norm, which had been established for me by the traditional,... Read more

  Posted on 22 February 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY

• Follow-ups on Earlier Posts

  Follow-up 1: Almost one year ago, I posted a list of UK philosophers who were among the combatants in WWI. I've added another name to that list: Leon Roth, who... Read more

  Posted on 11 January 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY