Is Socrates’ politics theological? Or is a Blackwing pencil created by the gods?

I decided to present to my readers a photo of my note-taking gear used for reading and doing research.

So, it's kinda a thing with me. Never read without a pencil. It's always been like that. And it shall always be so in the future. However the thing with me is that basically all of the world's pencils today suck. They break, they cannot erase or destroy your paper if they can, the graphite is weak or strained and smudges easily or disappears. Just, today's pencils are horrible. Gosh, any yellow pencil I have ever used wasn't proper for writing down anything.

But then I discovered two pencils in particular, and now knowing them and using them, they are essentials.

One is the Ticonderoga pencil that you can get from the Dollar Store for, yes, somewhere around a dollar. Crisp and clean graphite lays down nicely and evenly, fine enough wood, fine enough eraser but using a separate eraser is advised.

The Blackwing 602 however, *changed my world*. Yes, we are talking about a pencil. If you read the reviews, the rumors are true. I myself had my doubts. But no, it is indeed the single most greatest pencil on earth. Throw the Staedtler pencil sharpener for a superb writable point into the mix, and to the side have handy your Artgum eraser (with these two items you will have the cleanest, razor-fine point ever and an eraser that absolutely will not nor ever smudge picking up perfectly any and all graphite - and the eraser's gumminess is so addictive to squeeze in your hand as you read), and you have the ultimate note-taking armory.

The Blackwing writes so smoothly, it glides with "half the pressure twice the speed" putting down to paper buttery and smooth graphite cleanly and evenly. I will spare you the full review (I am not sponsored by these products) but the Blackwing Palamino 602 is not just an ordinary pencil. It is not just any pencil that could be manufactured by anyone. No.

It is a pencil created by the gods.

An amazing paper on Schelling: Sean McGrath - "The Ecstatic Realism of the Late Schelling"

Saw this in my academia feed and after a quick initial read (a more careful second read is pending, time permitting) I must say that this is probably one of the best papers I've seen concerning Schelling within the past decade, if not ever. Absolutely amazing. Check it out, HERE.

Sean McGrath - "The Ecstatic Realism of the Late Schelling" 

Wow. Definitely read it.

Call for Papers: Tenth International Congress on Ecstatic Naturalism (the last conference!)

The Tenth International Congress on Ecstatic Naturalism will be held on the Drew University campus on April 18 and 19, 2020. As this will be the last Congress, the topic is open, although papers on the topic of climate change will be especially welcome. All that is required is that your paper mention however minimally some aspect of ecstatic naturalism.

Please send an abstract of your proposed paper with a title to corring@optonline.net. Please indicate if you are interested in competing for the Emerson Prize ($500) for the best paper by a junior scholar. If you wish to be considered for the prize, we will, of course, need the full paper (by March 25th). The criteria for the Emerson Prize are: 1) you must be either a student or have received your degree no more than five years earlier, 2) you have not won the prize before, and 3) your paper must be on ecstatic naturalism.

For more information please see Robert Corrington's blog at https://ecstaticnaturalism.org/

“The Lure of the Maine Coast and the Ticking Clock”

Corrington has put up a nice little post ruminating about the Maine coast's aesthetic virtues. For those not aware, Robert retired end of the fall 2019 semester - where afterward he and his wife relocated to the Maine coast. Maine always was (and still is) a special place for me (and Na) as well: its beauty unparalleled in mystery and majesty. I remember I wrote a large section of my first book there, and subsequently a few articles while overlooking our favorite place to go, Moosehead Lake. Naturphilosophie.

https://ecstaticnaturalism.org/f/the-lure-of-the-maine-coast-and-the-ticking-clock

Nietzsche on the Greeks and gods

Credit Withering Krypt.

Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue

This is interesting, haven't seen in my research something like this out there (other than my own work) save for the dissertation "Possibility in Peirce and Heidegger: A Propaedeutic for Synthesis" - the David Jeremiah Higgins U of Missouri Columbia 1968 dissertation I accidentally discovered and which prompted me to triangulate with Schelling Peirce and Heidegger. I do highly recommend the reading of that dissertation for like-minded scholar with an interest in the overlap or even union of American and Continental philosophy, "Euro-American philosophy," as my old mentor Robert Corrington would put it.

https://www.academia.edu/41735824/The_Intersection_of_Semiotics_and_Phenomenolgy_Peirce_and_Heidegger_in_Dialogue

quote of the day

"Words had separated me from my body. The sun released me. Greece cured my self-hatred and awoke a will to health. I saw that beauty and ethics were one and the same. Creating a beautiful work of art and a beautiful oneself are identical."

- Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima - Sun and Steel

quote of the day

“But the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself.... Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. This power is identical with what we earlier called the Subject.”

- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Review of Ronald Beiner's Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Return of the Far Right

I am posting the below video at least in part to alleviate *some* of my disgust after glancing through a loaned copy of Ronald Beiner's Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Return of the Far Right. Trust me, I am going to review this piece of trash book on my YouTube channel soon enough.

The fact that University of Pennsylvania Press (of all places!) would publish this absolute piece of sensationalist TRASH is beyond belief. Just the fact that the names of Nietzsche and Heidegger - HEIDEGGER - would appear atop of an image of the Charlottesville demonstrations, torches and all, makes me sick. Literally sick, as in I want to vomit when I think about it.

Again, so I am perfectly clear: I am going to review this book on my YouTube channel. And I will trounce it as it deserves to be. There is no Bibliography, the notes are complete garbage and lack any scholarly integrity completely, and the ideas within are so shopworn run-of-the-mill "connect Heidegger and Nietzsche to Nazism as fast as you can" that I absolutely cannot believe in any way that U Penn published this.

It reminds me about how many, many years ago I attended a picnic get-together hosted by my undergraduate mentor (who took his Ph.D. at U of Toronto, where sadly Beiner apparently now teaches) after I had just completed my M.A. (which, incidentally, was on Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Nietzsche). There my mentor disclosed how he met Charles Guignon - the somewhat famous Heidegger scholar at the University of South Florida -- who told him that he thought my thesis was "Nazi philosophy." So, that goes to show the sort of mentality with which we are dealing here. Beiner is in that same camp. Completely clueless.

Anyway, enjoy the below video, English subtitles. I suppose because the folks in the video discuss Ernst Junger and Carl Schmitt that they, too, are "Nazi philosophers." Give me a break.

the world tour continues...

It's been a grueling three weeks of travel, one more to go. I have to say that Thailand is more of a family-in-law visiting thing but nevertheless an extremely enjoyable place. By far exciting though for me personally is Japan's allure - which has grown on me since my first visit a few years ago (this is my third or fourth time there).

As I am catching up on some work I don't have time now to explain why Japan is growing on me, but I do know that Japan, along with Iceland and Switzerland, are among my favorite places to visit in the world. It's a shame I suppose that I don't have much of an interest in Japanese philosophy aside from maybe the Kyoto school, but I do know that the people, the food, the culture, the history - all just so wonderful.

It even prompted me to create a video about it on my YouTube channel. In a world where more time existed I would definitely like to create some blog entries on Iceland and all of the great things there, in addition to Japan. It may not be worth the effort as blogging has long, long ago taken a back seat to video on YouTube. I can't say my YouTube channel's traffic competes with my blog's traffic, but I imagine one day that it will.

Photo credit above to Na, my wife.