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 …

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 …

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 …

William Blake Unshackled

Romantic poet and painter William Blake (1757-1827). His Songs of Innocence and Experience were a contrast of the ordinary mechanistic world to the vibrant imaginative world which could see the world anew, perhaps even as it really is. He recognized man as struggling between the imaginative naivete' and the realism of what old age imposes …

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria

The Lyrical Ballads were written in 1798 as a joint project between Wordsworth and Coleridge. In 1800 Coleridge said the new preface, contains our joint opinions on Poetry however by 1802 things took a wrong turn and Coleridge proclaimed he knew Wordsworth better than he knew himself. Coleridge believed Wordsworth was brilliant, but as time …

Aristotle on Virtue

Virtue too is distinguished into kinds in accordance with this difference; for we say that some of the virtues are intellectual and others moral, philosophical wisdom and understanding and [prudence] being intellectual, liberality and temperance moral.” (Book I, Chapter 13, 1103a 4-7) “The wise individual personifies,” Daniel said, “the intellectual virtues, whereas the self-restrained, moderate …

William James: The Mind-Stuff Theory

Principles of Psychology: The Mind-Stuff Theory Evolutionary Psychology Demands a Mind-Dust.   In a general theory of evolution the inorganic comes first, then the lowest forms of animal and vegetable life, then forms of life that possess mentality, and finally those like ourselves that possess it in a high degree. As long as we keep …

Frankenstein’s Creature

The monster tells him of the horrors of alienation and isolation as he unintentionally scared men, women, and children. He tells Frankenstein of one family whom he had admired and tried to gain their love. The creature found a space on the side of the house that was hidden from sight. There he listened and …

The Rage of Achilles

What started the Trojan war? Was it a wedding of the Gods, where the uninvited, Discordia, throws a gilded, golden apple on the fabled table, saying, “To the fairest”? Sitting there at this wedding table, Zeus wisely decides to not get involved and chooses a mortal man, Paris, to give the golden apple to one …