The Secular Frontier

The stock market temporarily tanked today and the proposed tariffs are wildly unpopular in the states. So, the result of Trump terrorizing my fellow Canadians with tariff threats for the last little while is Canada and Mexico have been given proba ... Read Article

I mentioned last time it is foundational for Donald Trump to cite reasons such as fentanyl to justify large tariffs on Canada, because in the video I linked to of him this seems to be smoke and mirrors since in his words were he wants tariffs ... Read Article

Why would Trump do such a thing? Here is his official justification: As a Canadian this is scary because it threatens to put our economy into recession. Is Trump being honest, though? Here is an alternative answer: Greed. Trump has become convi ... Read Article

“We know next to nothing about the poetic truth of the tragic poetry of Aeschylus and Sophocles (Heidegger, Heraclitus 1944, 237)” “The human is the place of the truth of being, and this is why the human can, at the same time, also be the conf ... Read Article

The modern human is fascinated by this technological monstrosity of brightness; when it becomes too much, he uses the mountains or the sea as a palliative; he then ‘experiences’ ‘nature’  an experience that certainly can become boring alread ... Read Article

"What are you gaping at, you scoundrels? Or is it not better to do this [Play with kids] than to work with you on behalf of the πόλις [city-state]?" (Heraclitus) The above statement reflects Heraclitus’s disdain for current affairs political i ... Read Article

Heidegger notes regarding phusis that when we see the Van Gogh that “this is art” or the circling bird of prey “this is nature,” as though artness and natureness was present incarnate in the beings (Pa, phusis, 212).”  More to the point with He ... Read Article

Thales is a step back from life, not caught up in the everyday and so falls in a well while thinking, and the Thracian slave girl laughs at him. Heidegger argues (FCM, 183) all creative action resides in a mood of melancholy, whether we are clearly awa ... Read Article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1z7LhlFf8A ... Read Article

We’ve been thinking about “to on,” the participle which is simultaneously the nominative/substantive “the being” and the verbal “being.”  We saw with Plato’s Gorgias that with the beautiful thing beauty is present as the usual Greek way t ... Read Article

There are 2 famous stories about Heraclitus The first famous story about Heraclitus involves him at a stove or oven, where he is said to have been warming himself. According to Diogenes Laërtius in his "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers," som ... Read Article

“We call those thinkers who think in the region of the inception ‘the inceptional [arche, 18] thinkers.’  There are only three such thinkers: Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus (Heidegger, Heraclitus, 4).” Heidegger considers Anaximande ... Read Article

Why are you so petrified of silence? Here can you handle this?  Did you think about your bills, you ex, your deadlines?  Or when you think you're going to die? Or did you long for the next distraction? All I Really Want (by Alanis Mor ... Read Article

Parmenides said “for the same is apprehending as well as Being.”  Apprehending is a translation of the Greek word noein, to “take” into sight (to look it over or “take” it into consideration).  We operate in this while not normally s ... Read Article

This is my second of two background pieces on Being that will prepare us to follow Heidegger along Parmenides's path. An understanding of Being is necessary for us to “encounter” beings “as such,” for them to make us happy, weigh on us in a tro ... Read Article

I’ve moved beyond Heidegger’s analysis of Anaximander in the lecture course to Parmenides.  Parmenides, of course, is the great philosopher of Being, so let’s gather some preliminary thoughts about Being. When we normally talk about Being, w ... Read Article

I noted previously Anaximander is talking about beings, ta onta, the neuter plural of to on – being, which implies beings in their unity and not just a multiplicity.  Heidegger notes we see this too in Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, the use of the neuter p ... Read Article

Anaximander gave us a word about beings as beings (entities, things that are in some way instead of being nothing) not just about beings of a specific domain like physical beings or anthropological entities, beings in their Being, and one of the elements ... Read Article

“The fragment of Anaximander presents one of the strongest hermeneutic challenges known to modem philology and philosophy.”  (Prof Vassilis Lambropoulos: Stumbling.over the ‘Boundary Stone of Greek Philosophy’ Two Centuries-of Translating th ... Read Article

"The fragment of Anaximander presents one of the strongest hermeneutic challenges known to modem philology and philosophy."  (Prof Vassilis Lambropoulos: Stumbling.over the 'Boundary Stone of Greek Philosophy' Two Centuries-of Translating the Anaximand ... Read Article

“The fragment of Anaximander presents one of the strongest hermeneutic challenges known to modem philology and philosophy.”  (Prof Vassilis Lambropoulos: Stumbling.Over the ‘Boundary Stone of Greek Philosophy’ Two Centuries-of Translating the An ... Read Article

“The fragment of Anaximander presents one of the strongest hermeneutic challenges known to modem philology and philosophy.”  (Prof Vassilis Lambropoulos: Stumbling.Over the ‘Boundary Stone of Greek Philosophy’ Two Centuries-of Translating the An ... Read Article

“The fragment of Anaximander presents one of the strongest hermeneutic challenges known to modem philology and philosophy.”  (Prof Vassilis Lambropoulos: Stumbling.Over the ‘Boundary Stone of Greek Philosophy’ Two Centuries-of Translating the An ... Read Article

After talking to a few people I decided to summarize the previous The Late Date of the Gospels blog post series regarding 2 issues: (i) A Second Century date for Mark and (ii) The theory Luke comes after Matthew. MARK I argued that the traditional d ... Read Article

This volume comprises a lecture course given by Martin Heidegger at the University of Freiburg in 1932.  It’s topic is the beginning of Western philosophy and deals with Being and beings.  What is Being?  The quote from Plato's Sophis ... Read Article