http://dickdeshaw.com By Dick DeShaw, MA, ABD Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:18:50 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Ironically, when reason failed me, I could only find solace in the writings of a man who has been called a 'rationalist;' however, after making repeated and failed runs at being an academic and ending up in prison, what made me a kindred spirit with Baruch Spinoza was not reason, ... http://dickdeshaw.com/what-this-sites-about/ This came to me from someone on the net. Maybe it's going around this February. My response follows:    " The world is meaningless, there is no God or gods, there are no morals, the universe is not moving inexorably towards any higher purpose. All meaning is man-made, so make your ... http://dickdeshaw.com/response-to-the-world-is-meaningless/ 1)    The Language Shuffle In preparation for this topic, I read Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Reading Wittgenstein is the intellectual equivalent of having your mouth washed out with soap for using naughty words. However, reading Wittgenstein is the necessary propaedeutic for discussing a philosopher's theory of knowledge.  As he said, “philosophy is ... http://dickdeshaw.com/has-philosophy-ignored-spinozas-theory-of-science/ Stephen - thank you for your last two e-mails (oct 17, 7:0t & 7:07). I am sorry to hear you've had computer problems. Reading your work is an experience similar to that which happened when I first discovered the Canadian golfer, Moe Norman. Moe probably could be described as possibly ... http://dickdeshaw.com/reply-to-stephen/ Re: "By your lack of response, I assume that you've put me in the 'crazy person' category.         Obviously you have mistaken me for an academic.  I like to make a distinction beween 'academic' and 'scholar.' Academics tend to critique everything from their own paradigm of knowledge, rather than understand.     ... http://dickdeshaw.com/response-to-a-comment/ (This was written as a response to a challenge to list one book that is most important to the ages 4, 14, 40 & forever)              Here are my selections but first a confession: (Actually three).  The works of each author are more than one book because the whole is greater ... http://dickdeshaw.com/books-that-matter-most-at-four-fourteen-forty-forever/ Nature sings. Life is an infinite YES! http://dickdeshaw.com/summary-of-spinozas-whole-philosophy/ Thank you, Alastair,  for posting this Sunday Times review of Graham Farmeleo's book on Paul Dirac. It came at an opportune time.  Several comments in the review were applicable to a significant discovery I made about Spinoza last week, which has been fermenting in my brain since then.     Although I ... http://dickdeshaw.com/paul-dirac-spinoza/ A response to poet, John Barlow when he wrote:  " The first questions just don't seem to languish within the terminologies which sunk the ship of philosophy."  When I was a guard in prison, reason failed me and I almost went down with the ship. This is why grabbed on ... http://dickdeshaw.com/an-apostate-idea-of-spinoza/ We live in a big universe. It is getting bigger everyday. We live in a big universe. It is getting bigger everyday. But the universe is only about a fourth of the size of the dark matter and energy that surrounds it. Nobody knows if that is all there is. We did ... http://dickdeshaw.com/a-vastly-simplified-history-of-a-higher-power/