Applying William James’ Pragmatism

There are many reasons to believe in God, some of which aren't very good. However, there are patterns and designs that suggest there might be a god, but this isn't the place for natural theology. What I would like to discuss is William James' pragmatism which attempts to make judgements and relieve the mind from …

Just Published My Short Story “The Exile”

https://www.amazon.com/Exile-Stephen-C-Pedersen/dp/1709217456/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=stephen+pedersen+exile&qid=1577841971&sr=8-2 You can get the paperback on Amazon for $5.99, the Kindle for $.99 This is a short, poignant allegory which begins in the ancient city of Babylon. The protagonist is a man who wrestles with darkness, but who ceaselessly strives towards the light. However, after forty circling centuries have passed, the polymath leaves everything …

A Dialogue on Nietzsche’s Depth Psychology

It was September. This week Café metaphysics was to be held at the bar Soren and I use frequent. Sad memories lingered as I walk up the hill to its doors. Daedalus recalled The last time the entire group met there in our discussion on depth psychology in Greek tragedy. Daedalus then looked up in …

An Analysis of Matthew Arnold’s Literature and Science

Percy passed an essay on to Daedalus for him to read, but first he gave the setting in which it was created. Percy told him that it was addressed to the United States in 1883, in reply to Thomas H. Huxley's “Science and Culture," delivered in Birmingham on October 1st, 1880. Huxley was known as …

Darwin and the Descent of Man

Darwin and The Descent of Man Charles Darwin (1809-1882) went to the University of Edinburgh and Cambridge like his grandfather Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802). Erasmus became a good enough physician to tend to George III, and his most important scientific work was Zoonomia which explains pathology and hinted at the idea of evolution. While Charles Darwin …

Faustian Ethics

In Marlowe’s Faust we come to find a man that was in search after power and lust; a man who desired to be twenty for life, sleep with every woman, and have the power to do as he will. What we find in Goethe’s Faust is very different. Faust is a wise man, a polymath, …

A Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body By Andrew Marvell

SOUL O who shall, from this dungeon, raise A soul enslav’d so many ways? With bolts of bones, that fetter’d stands In feet, and manacled in hands; Here blinded with an eye, and there Deaf with the drumming of an ear; A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains Of nerves, and arteries, and veins; …

Mind By Richard Wilbur

Mind in its purest play is like some bat That beats about in caverns all alone, Contriving by a kind of senseless wit Not to conclude against a wall of stone. It has no need to falter or explore; Darkly it knows what obstacles are there, And so may weave and flitter, dip and soar …

How the Greeks Invented Philosophy

“How did Greece become the first civilization to have the means to examine themselves?” asked Soren. “Where they lived had a huge impact on the invention of philosophy. They had to trade with foreign people, with armies much larger than themselves, with gods that gave a different logos. They were continually shown their way of …

The Dignity In Mankind

When we accept agape in our soul we begin to see the universal dignity in mankind. Sometimes it's hard to see it in an individual, because it lays dormant, but when it is sparked and catches fire it's a sight to behold. What I'm referring to is the dignity that Rousseau and Kant express inside …

Know Thyself

Alone in his flat, flashes of memories flooded his cave of creativity. He closes his eyes and imagined what it must be like to be an atom or quark with some sort of fundamental consciousness as it travels through space and time. Lost in the thought of passing particles crashing and colliding, then thoughts of …

Beauty Is All the Power We Should Wield in the World.

Don’t you see that is how people must be shaken out of their dogmas? We’re like fish in water, never knowing what water is like, that it is wet. Something must force one out of the water, kicking and screaming, until that being finds what water is like, what they are like, and what the …

The Idea of Play

When Kant made his argument for the unbreakable barrier between the phenomena and the noumena, he didn't even leave room for how we know ourselves. Friedrich Schiller, In his Aesthetic Education of Man, writes that, “Man is never so authentically himself as when at play." Play is what we do to be free. The chief …

Immanuel Kant: The Critique of Pure Reason (Rough Draft)

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher who was born and lived in Königsberg, Prussia. He grew up in a Lutheran Protestant household that focused on the literal interpretation of the Bible. This religious upbringing is taught through the lens of humility and devotion. He enrolled into the University of Königsberg at the age of …

The Brick Wall Effect

When we're young of age we begin to take in information from our parents without question. It's the principle of credulity we cling to as a child. We believe everything. As we get older, with the bricks of knowledge we've already laid to construct a foundation, we strengthen our beliefs with friendly facts. The wall …