"To think of time"

"....

The law of the past cannot be eluded.
The law of the present and future cannot be eluded,
The law of the living cannot be eluded .... it is eternal,
The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded,
The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded,
The law of drunkards and informers and mean persons cannot be eluded"

"I swear I see now that every thing has an eternal soul!
The trees have, rooted in the ground .... the weeds of the sea have .... the animals.

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is for it,
And all preparation is for it .. and identity is for it .. and life and death are for it."


Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass" The First Edition (1855): Excerpts from "To think of time"

Comparative judgments

"On the other hand, it is true that we make comparative judgments, and it is a powerful argument for consequentialism that it makes sense of this. Deontological accounts of morality, such as Kant's, seem, at times, to take little account of our comparative ways of thinking and also to have great difficulty in explaining them. In our most urgent moral dilemmas we ask ourselves which of two course of action would be better or which among a number of actions would be best."(p. 93-94)

"Human beings find their fulfilment in mutual love and self-giving, but they get to this point via a long path of self-development, in which imitation, obedience, and self-control are necessary moments. This is not a hard thing to understand once we see the development of personality in the terms suggested by Aristotle. But it is a hard thing to practice. Nevertheless, when we understand things rightly, we will be motivated to put virtue and good habits back where they belong, at the center of personal life." (p. 111-112)

"Those thoughts are suggestions only. Rather than burden this short work with my own attempts to explain them, I refer instead to the two great works of art that have attempted to show what redemption means for us, in the world of modern skepticisim: Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov and Wagner's Parsifal. In the wake of these two great aesthetic achievements, it seems to me, the perspective of philosophy is of no great significance" (p. 143-144)

Από το ΠΟΛΥ ενδιαφέρον βιβλίο που αγόρασα από το Bookpath:

Roger Scruton, "On Human Nature", Princeton University Press, 2017

Luz

Μεγάλη Παρασκευή, μπροστά στον Άγιο Διονύσιο Αρεοπαγίτη, μια κυρία ανάβει το κερί της από το δικό μου.

                                                              Ευχή μου: Φως

                 La foto fue tomada por Alejandro Martínez Martínez. ¡Muchas gracias, Alejandro!

Visual thinking

Αποσπάσματα από την εισαγωγή ενός καταπληκτικού βιβλίου!

"The central thesis of this study is that in early modern Europe the viewing and creation of imagery functioned as important instruments of philosophical thought and teaching. Visual representations acted as essential tools for the generation of knowledge. Philosophers understood the vieweing and making of visual representations as cognitive processes, and images often articulated ideas that could not quite be communicated in verbal language. Vision developed into the model of intelligibility, while drawings, prints, and the processes of looking at and designing visual representations became dominant metaphors for understanding human perception and characterizing the manner in which an observer gains and retains knowledge about the world. At the same time, the intense engagement with visual representations was accompanied by lingering doubts about their role in the creation and transmission of philosophical theories;" (p. 2)

"Historians of the early modern era have argued that Europeans experienced an "information explosion" between 1550 and 1750, related to a set of factors that included the rising production of printed books, travel and the discovery of new lands, the retrieval of ancient texts, and a passionate interest in gathering information. Over the last two or three decades, a new area of cultural history has developed that focuses on institutions of knowledge and seeks to understand how information has been organized and managed in the past. Scholars have studied a range of collections and learning aids including reference books, cabinets of curiosities, botanical gardens, archives, and encyclopedias that were employed during the eraly modern period and earlier to manage an overabundance of information." (p. 3)

Susanna Berger, "The Art of Philosophy. Visual Thinking in Europe from the Late Rennaissance to the Early Enlightenment", Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford 2017.

Καλή Ανάσταση

Είθε τα χρώματα να δώσουν ελπίδα σε όλους και να απαλύνουν τον πόνο και τον φόβο εκείνων που υποφέρουν...

Τα λουλούδια στις φωτογραφίες είναι από τους κήπους του Βυζαντινού Μουσείου

Great is Justice

"Great is Justice;
Justice is not settled by legislators and laws.... it is in the soul,
It cannot be varied by statutes any more than love or pride or the attraction of gravity can,
It is immutable.. it does not depend on majorities .... majorities or what not come at
      last before the same passionless and exact tribunal.

For justice are the grant natural lawyers and perfect judges .... it is in their souls,
It is well assorted ....they have not studied for nothing .... the great includes the less,
They rule on the highest grounds .... they oversee all eras and states and
       administrations.

The perfect judge fears nothing .... he could go front to front before God,
Before the perfect judge all shall stand back .... life and death shall stand back ....
      heaven and hell shall stand back."

Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass"