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PHILOSOPHY PATHWAYS electronic journal
Issue number 186
1st June 2014
Special Christopher Norris Issue
I. 'Poetry as (a Kind of) Philosophy: for Richard Rorty' by
Christopher Norris
II. 'Hume A-Dying: notes from Boswell' by Christopher Norris
Pathways News
III. Academy of Romanian Scientists: Philosophy of Science Today
13-19 October 2014
I am delighted to have the opportunity to dedicate the bulk of this
issue of Philosophy Pathways to the work of the philosopher and
literary critic Christopher Norris, Distinguished Research Professor
in Philosophy at Cardiff University.
According to Wikipedia, Christopher Norris is '... one of the world's
leading scholars on deconstruction, and the work of Jacques Derrida.
He has written numerous books and papers on literary theory,
continental philosophy, philosophy of music, philosophy of language
and philosophy of science. More recently, he has been focussing on
the work of Alain Badiou in relation with both the analytic tradition
(particularly analytic philosophy of mathematics) and with the
philosophy of Derrida.'
Out of the blue, around three weeks ago, I received the following
email from Christopher Norris:
I am sending (by attachment) a poem -- actually a long
verse-essay -- that you might wish to publish in a
forthcoming number of Philosophy Pathways. I should perhaps
explain that the piece originates in my various published
exchanges with Rorty many years back, and that it responds
to his challenge that philosophy should become more
adventurous, exploratory, inventive, metaphorical, and --
in short -- poetic. Hence my otherwise rather odd choice of
verse as a medium in which to conduct philosophical debate.
I told Professor Norris that the issue was his to edit if he wanted
it. Subsequently, he added a second, shorter poem, inspired by the
famous visit of James Boswell, Dr Samuel Johnson's biographer, to the
dying philosopher David Hume in Edinburgh on July 7th 1776.
The Rorty poem is preceded by an introduction in which Norris fills
in the background of his discussions with the philosopher Richard
Rorty, and talks about his somewhat unusual choice of the verse form.
The Hume poem is preceded by a short extract which Norris has selected
from Boswell's journals.
These two poems are instructive, not only about Richard Rorty and
David Hume, but also about the literary art of verse writing in the
tradition of Alexander Pope (1688-1744) and William Empson
(1906-1984). They are also hugely enjoyable to read.
I have added an item of news about a conference organized by the
Academy of Romanian Sciences, 'Philosophy of Science Today' which
will take place at the Andrei Saguna University, Constanta, Romania
13th-19th October 2014. The item was submitted by ISFP member Narcis
Zarnescu, PhD.
Geoffrey Klempner
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
This long poem (perhaps better called verse-essay) is one of a number
that I've written over the past few years, most of them on
philosophical, literary, musical, and cultural-historical themes.
They are all composed in fairly strict rhyming iambic pentameter and
use a variety of likewise regular stanza-schemes including (my
favourite) terza rima and various permutations on the basic
quatrain form. This one doubles up the quatrains into octaves (or
octets) since the longer unit gives more leeway for internal
variations of structure, emphasis, verse-rhythm, and devices like
parallelism or grammatical inversion.
I should say straight off that I'm an unashamed formalist who greatly
enjoys exploring these possibilities and who tends to assume that my
readers will share that perhaps rather curious predilection. But of
course such formal techniques are no use if they don't serve to point
up, qualify, complicate, or at least fall square with the sense so I
hope that's more often than not the case here. I should also say --
in a likewise cautionary way -- that I favour syntactically complex
forms with sentences that almost always run over line-endings and
often extend across several stanzas. Again, I shouldn't want to
apologise too much for this, since one of the things I'm trying to do
here and in other poems is to reinvent for contemporary uses the kind
of argumentative verse-essay that seems to have 'come naturally' to
many eighteenth-century poets but has disappeared almost completely
in the wake of symbolism, imagism, modernism, and their
anti-discursive offshoots. No doubt my day-job as a professional
philosopher has influenced my thinking on these matters, as well as
supplying more than a few of my topics. But on the literary side it
is William Empson's example, as poet and critic, that has meant most
to me over the years and that readers familiar with his work will not
fail to notice at various points.
I should fill in some parts of the background picture for those who
may otherwise be baffled on the one hand by various moderately
'technical' bits of discussion and on the other, especially toward
the end, by the few personal or anecdotal passages. I met Richard
Rorty on several occasions, mostly at conferences or seminars in the
US and Britain. The context was usually a debate framed around the
varied but associated issues of relativism, truth, pragmatism,
critique, postmodernism, deconstruction, philosophy in relation
to/conflict with literary theory, and the historical fortunes of the
European enlightenment. He took a strongly pragmatist view which
pretty much endorsed William James's laid-back characterization of
truth (fiercely contested by Bertrand Russell) as what's by and large
'good in the way of belief', that is, what best serves to protect,
preserve and promote the interests of human physical, moral, and
cultural flourishing. At the same time he took a highly positive --
even quite exalted -- view of the US and its role as an ethically
progressive force for good both in domestic social-political terms
and as a matter of expanding global influence. His attachment to the
American pragmatists, Dewey in particular, and their recasting of
philosophy in the vernacular grain was very much a part of that
This all went along, for Rorty, with a naturalised but non-reductive
since language-oriented and culture-responsive epistemology; a
rejection of Kantian or other 'foundationalist' approaches; a
consequent suspicion of 'enlightenment' values like truth and
critique; a scepticism toward most of what passed for reputable or
valid academic philosophy in the analytic mainstream; a growing
preference for its sundry 'continental' alternatives; a
strong-revisionist, i.e., non-truth-based conception of
interpretative practice across all disciplines or areas of thought;
and a view of hermeneutics -- along with cultural and literary
criticism -- as what philosophy ought to look like once rid of its
delusory pretensions of intellectual grandeur. He had no time for
Kant-derived transcendental or condition-of-possibility arguments,
regarding them as relics of old-style 'armchair' philosophising,
although he did devote a good deal of time to explaining and
defending his reasons for thinking so. In his later years Rorty
tended to mix more with people in departments of English, Comparative
Literature, Cultural Studies, and Ethnography rather than (at any rate
analytically-inclined) Philosophy, a habit no doubt reinforced by his
ex-colleagues' less than generous response to his perceived apostasy.
This makes it doubly ironic that I, with an early background in
literary studies, and having hopped across the disciplines to
philosophy via literary theory, should have ended up opposing
his position on most of these points. Our disagreements get a
versified repeat airing here, most prominently those having to do
with truth, critique, relativism, transcendental arguments, and (in a
pointedly different sense of the term) the transcendental or visionary
strain in US social, political and cultural thought. I take a much
less rosy view of US politics and its various social and cultural
expressions, although -- to be fair -- Rorty himself was increasingly
prone to doubts on that score after the election of George W. Bush and
the advent of his 'war on terror'. Still I try to keep the tone fairly
relaxed, even chatty at times, so as not to let this rehearsal of old
quarrels get in the way of my admiring and affectionate memories of
him as a wonderfully generous host when I visited Virginia. He was
also a genial though resolute opponent in debate, a patient and
kindly interlocutor in print, and a fine advertisement for those
progressive values to which his home culture has so far not managed
to live up.
Elsewhere I look back at our differing views about Heidegger and
Derrida, the two 'continental' thinkers who -- along with Hegel --
were of greatest importance for Rorty's revisionist project, albeit
on a suitably naturalised (or pragmatised) selective reading. As
regards the vexed question of Heidegger's politics he thought that
you could perfectly well drive a wedge between man and work and
thereby hang on to the claim that Heidegger was a major thinker and
source of vital new ideas while accepting, since the evidence left
little choice, that he was also an unreconstructed 'Schwarzwald
redneck'. In Derrida's case Rorty urged that we forget all the
earnest philosophical stuff, especially the bits that people like me
construed as 'negative transcendental' arguments or as couched in a
'conditions of impossibility' mode, and just enjoy those other, more
'literary' texts which gave free rein to his powers of metaphorical
or fictive invention. I disagreed in both instances and hope that my
reasons will be clear enough from the poem.
Beyond that I think there is nothing that really needs explaining
except perhaps the bit toward the end about 'Trotsky and the Wild
Orchids'. This was the title of an unusually self-revealing essay
where Rorty discusses -- among other things -- his father's left-wing
union activism and the somewhat Kierkegaardian tension in his own life
and work between the call of commitment and the desire for aesthetic
pleasures untroubled by such queasy issues of conscience. Writing the
poem and re-living some of those debates made me very aware of how
remarkably good-humoured he remained despite my lining up, as it must
have seemed, with every hostile bunch in town. Anyway I trust that
this poem will be read as an unfeigned tribute despite the one or two
waspish passages when it comes to those touchy matters of politics.
Hope you won't take it as a backhand kind
Of compliment, or something even worse,
Like old-score settling, if I try to find
Some way to talk our issues through in verse.
At best it might be something that combined
Word-magic with your talent to rehearse
Deep issues in philosophy of mind,
Language, or logic and yet intersperse
The expert stuff with writing of the sort
That takes a larger readership on board
And never sells them or its topic short
Since your prose-style was one that could afford
To mingle idioms, like modes of thought,
Unworried as to how they might accord
With all the protocols set up to thwart
Such ventures into regions unexplored
By the rule-sticklers. Yet, it may be said,
Why rhyme and metre? when you stuck to prose,
Albeit of a kind that's likely read
More often by non-specialists than those
Whose academic caution bids them tread
A style-path narrower than the one you chose
As the best route for anyone who'd head
Off on a high-ground hike that might disclose
Perspectives on the intellectual scene
Unglimpsed and unimagined from inside
The mind-world of philosophers who've been
Trained on the low road and thereafter tried
To take short views. But that's not what you mean,
Not rhyme and metre, when you set aside
The plain-prose indicators of routine
Guild-membership or signs of bona-fide
Professional allegiance and advise
Your colleagues in the academic game
That, everything considered, they'd be wise
To give up warming over all the same
Old chestnuts in a slightly different guise,
Or seeking out new idioms to frame
The fixed agenda of an enterprise
Well past its prime. Then theirs would be the aim
Of coming up with such inventive tropes,
Such metaphors or narratives, as might,
If not too late, redeem the lost life-hopes
Of those who'd suffered the perennial blight
Brought on by being forced to learn the ropes
As tenure-track required. So they should write
Not just, you said, the sort of prose that copes
With getting the main points across in tight,
Well-structured form but rather try to do
What poets (and some novelists) do best,
That is, discover senses to pursue
Far out beyond the denotations stressed
By literalists or those who would eschew
Such verbal licence since it fails the test
Of making sense or coming as true
According to the strictest standards pressed
So hard on other language-games by just
Those house-trained intellects who'd brought about
The trahison des clercs or breach of trust
By which philosophers presume to flout
The rule that says all living language must
Transform itself by always trying out
Fresh metaphors to live by. So the thrust
Of how you wrote was mainly to cast doubt
On the old kinds of metaphor that held
Philosophy in their Cartesian grip,
Or classic narratives whose upshot spelled
The moral that each ephebe be a chip
Off the old block and strike a pose that quelled
All notions of creative authorship
By a strict etiquette whose code compelled
Unruly types to give their guide the slip
Each time they fancied penning the odd phrase
Where some non-standard idiom revealed
Thoughts out of kilter with such proper ways
Of monologic speech. What lay concealed,
You let us know, in such communiques
Between the lines from somewhere out left-field
Was everything suppressed by the malaise
Of a style degree zero that appealed
Only to those in whom the wonder-struck
Thaumazein where philosophy began
For Socrates has somehow come unstuck
And left them, tenure-seekers to a man,
Resolved that prose of theirs should have no truck
With poetry but uphold Plato's ban
On metaphor, mimesis, and what luck
Or inspiration offered to the clan
Of rhapsodes and enthusiasts so lost
In their wild, word-intoxicated state
As to allow no reckoning of its cost
To reason's soul or pause to estimate
The civic harms poetically glossed
As due to gods or muses. Still you'd rate
This verse-epistle evidence of crossed
Wires or cross-purposes since to equate
Your idea that philosophy should take
A more poetic form with the idea
That rhyme and meter might between them make
Some big improvement seems a case of clear
Misapprehension. What you thought would break
The spirit-wasting hold of that austere
Style without style -- and thereby help to shake
The sense that went along with it of sheer
Necessity that certain things be done
In certain ways as laid down by the code
Of analytic practice -- involved none
Of those verse-features that might grace an ode
By Pindar, Keats & Co., but that you'd shun
(I guess) if they turned up, as here, bestowed
On writing of a kind that shouldn't run
To formal structures apt to overload
The powers of concentration rightly trained,
By readers of a less indulgent bent,
On more substantive issues. Point sustained:
You still found room for reasoned argument,
Not least while telling us what's to be gained
By taking on the freedom to invent
New language-games beyond the sorts ordained
By fealty to some one line of descent
Against all others. So we'd better think
That when you told us poetry could save
Philosophy, or pull it from the brink
Of a not undeserved nor early grave,
The price of having its choice public shrink
To miniscule proportions, this meant they've
Gone wrong, the current lot, in ways that link
Way back to many another short-lived wave
Of intellectual fashion. They should learn
More from the poets about how to spin
Fresh-minted metaphors, or how to turn
A life-enhancing phrase, but not begin
On any verse-led binge that bids us spurn
All remnants of analysis and pin
Our best hopes to those language-games that yearn
For something more upliftingly akin
To that which rhyme and meter put in place
Of dullard reason. So let's not deny
The obvious: when you suggest we face
Philosophy's low prospects with an eye
To poetry's high hopes it's not the case
That you're just asking us to versify
The same old topics. What you want's more space
Between the words so language can supply
The poetry that comes of hearing all
The intertextual echoes that resound
On cue to every signifier's call
Or sundry connotations that surround
Each letter, word and phrase when not in thrall
To denotative sense but -- as you found
With Derrida's best efforts to forestall
The dead hand of the literal -- unbound
From signified or referent. Thus freed,
It takes the less thought-trodden path that winds
Along whichever language-route may lead
The Denker, like the Dichter, past what binds
The intellect to some accustomed creed,
Or idiolect to usage, for those minds
Professionally groomed to meet the need
That intellect conform to just the kinds
Of usage certified to hold the line
Against such vagrant thoughts. That's why you waged
Ironic war on readings that, like mine,
Took Derrida as one who still engaged
With topics that the derriere-garde define
As squarely philosophical since staged
In just such terms as those that you'd consign
To the scrap-heap of words that once assuaged
Our craving for god-substitutes but now
Should join the pile along with other such
Time-honoured relics. These remind us how
Hard we must struggle to escape the clutch
Of outworn images or disavow
Pythagorean echoes that still touch
Some chord in us despite what we allow
To be their false allure. The case was much
The same -- your point again -- throughout the whole
Unquestionably rich and varied tale
Of Western metaphysics and the role
Within it of those metaphors whose trail
Leads back to the idea of mind or soul
As glassy essence, taken to entail
The message that philosophy's main goal
Must be to see that clarity prevail,
Mind apprehend that essence, and soul come,
By constant mirror-polishing, to catch
Its own reflection unimpaired by some
Small imperfection or minutest scratch
That might obstruct its gaze. Your rule of thumb
With metaphors like this was: mix and match
Them as a poet might till they succumb
To ordinary usage, then dispatch
Them to whatever limbo's set apart
For tropes, as Nietzsche said, that masquerade
As concepts or involve the subtle art
(Amongst philosophers a stock-in-trade)
Of un-remembering, as if by heart,
Those metaphoric coinages that made
Philosophy from Plato to Descartes
And up to now a constant dress-parade
Of figures that had undergone the shift
From sensuous to abstract. This made sure
Their advent as imagination's gift
To thought was long forgotten and secure
From prying intellects that gave short shrift
To white mythologies in quest of pure
Conceptual instruments by which to lift
Themselves above the thought-distracting lure
Of sensuous imagery and so attain
Transcendent truths. Thus far one might agree
And think you'd hit bang on a major strain
Of self-delusion that might better be
Put out of its long post-Cartesian pain
By the shrewd mix of gentle mockery
And counter-statement that you hoped would gain
More converts than if tendered in a key
Of odium scholasticum that left
The opposition dug in deeper while,
Merit aside, the case might seem bereft
Of basic courtesies that civil style
And decency should couple with the heft
Of a good argument. The point that I'll
Raise once again since, despite all your deft
Rejoinders, it's the one I have on file
Under 'unfinished business' is your use
Of that word 'transcendental' to include
Not only fictive entities like nous,
Soul, spirit, mind, and all the abstract brood
They fathered mainly as a poor excuse
To smuggle God back in, but things that you'd
Deem just as bad, like all claims to deduce,
From certain basic principles construed
As a priori warranted or backed
By reasonings in a transcendental form,
Such truths as otherwise we should have lacked
The means to justify. This was a norm,
You thought, that held up merely through the fact
That dumping it would kick up such a storm
Amongst philosophers who'd made their pact
To play along that sticking with the swarm
Seemed, on the face of it, a better bet
Than opting out of their protective guild,
Unlearning all the codes and passwords set
For members, cancelling thought-routines instilled
Through years of work, and striving to forget
The job-security that came with skilled
Observance of the local etiquette
Requiring that the expert types fulfilled
Conditions on sound usage of such big
Load-bearing terms as 'transcendental' which,
If downed in your way with a hefty swig
Of irony, say you're about to ditch
The whole caboodle and help that lot twig
How they'd been taken in. The only hitch
With this fine plan of yours was how to rig
The grand exposure so as not to stitch
The thing up so completely that there's no
Room left for anything remotely like
The discipline you practised years ago,
One that -- an observation apt to strike
Shrewd readers -- still engaged you even though
You came to treat its bi-millennial Reich
As more a kind of vaudeville roadshow
With some enticing bits put in to spike
The guns of those who'd say: let's just call time
On the whole thing, cut funding where it hurts,
And block philosophy's attempt to mime
The natural sciences. Your view converts
To a slight variant on this paradigm
And (hard not to conclude) distinctly flirts
With sceptic types who take it as their prime
Objective to undo what disconcerts
The currency of downright commonsense
(For which read 'ideology') and try
To rouse the populace in its defence
By methods that more fittingly apply
In contexts where the arguments dispense
With protocols of reason. A far cry
From the plain pragmatism you condense,
In Jamesian style, as wanting to get by
On a truth-notion that at last comes down
To what's good as a matter of belief,
Or what works out as the best game in town
With 'good' and 'best' defined (to keep it brief)
As tending by whatever means to crown
Our efforts with success, or bring relief
At other times when fortune seems to frown
On our endeavours. Or -- for you a chief
Plus-point -- it fits in with the pragmatist
Desire to keep our truth-talk within reach
Of practicalities too soon dismissed
By those, like Kant, who much prefer to preach
From the high moral ground and so enlist
Some abstract universal rule for each
New case-in-hand which then becomes more grist
For the slow-grinding mill where every breach
Of its strict regulations either throws
A case-shaped spanner in the works or churns
Out some case-crushing judgment to impose
Its sovereign law. Agreed, your thinking earns
High marks in this department since it goes
So far toward showing what the Kantian learns,
If ever, then most often at the close
Of a rule-governed moral life that turns
Out, with the unaccustomed gift of long-
Range reckoning, to exhibit all the signs
Of having gone life-damagingly wrong
At just those points where circumstance confines
The range of choice to seizing either prong
Of some dilemma where instinct inclines
To kindly acts and answers like a gong
At nature's call, while reason undermines
All that, decrees that precept substitute
For practice, and demands that instinct grant
Law's reason-based imperative to suit
Mere inclination to its rule as Kant
Sadistically enjoined. Such absolute
Conceptions of the moral good got scant
Respect from you since lying at the root
Of all bad creeds whose technique is to plant
Abstraction in the place where those to whom
Such thoughts appeal had better cultivate
Breadth of acquaintance as advised by Hume,
Make reason slave to passion, and sedate
Through social intercourse the will to doom
All absolutes but theirs to the same fate
Reserved for infidels by tribes with room
For no gods but their own. At any rate
Your laidback style does nothing to promote
Such moralising and reminds us, when
We're tempted by it, of how well you wrote
About the need to stand back, now and then,
From our most cherished values and devote
Some uptime to imagining again,
Like a good novelist, how to keep afloat
In these high seas or, like the finest, pen
Inventive variations on the way
Your liberal ironist might come to view
The issue from all sides and not betray
That purpose by a sneaky will to skew
The moral compass-points and so convey
Home-truths as universal. Still, if you
Think back a bit, you'll know I've kept at bay
A bunch of issues that ensured we two
Were seldom in accord beyond what I've
Set out as valid warrant just enough
For my verse-aided efforts to contrive
This late rapprochement. Where the seas got rough
On previous trips was when we took a dive
Into that choppy 'transcendental' stuff
And you said that the best way to survive
The maelstrom was to call Poseidon's bluff,
Go with the flow and take it all in stride,
As pragmatists commend, by holding fast
To something large and light enough to ride
The storm out -- empty barrel, chunk of mast,
Your choice -- since centrifugued out to the side
And buoyed up high as all the rest streamed past,
Then corkscrewed down. Most likely I've applied
This metaphor in ways that must be classed
Pedestrian or frankly bottom-grade
For creativity when set against
The scale you drew up as a reader's aid
For sorting texts conservatively fenced
Around with the exclusion-signs displayed
By faithful exegetes, from texts that sensed
Quite other possibilities but strayed
Only so far, and then texts that dispensed
With the whole rule-book drawn up just to vex
Free spirits -- poets, critics, novelists,
Philosophers, all those who long to flex
Creative muscles -- since the book insists
They not relax the standard range of checks
That help to straighten out the teasing twists
Of connotation that can so perplex
Plain readers. It's the transcendentalist
Gene-sequence in your DNA, I'd guess,
That evokes Blake and Wordsworth, maybe Keats,
With Shelley, Byron, and -- by more or less
Predestined westward passage -- what completes
Their project in the visionary sagesse
Of Emerson and Thoreau, then retreats
(If that's the word) to an downtown address
In pragmatism's stroller-friendly streets.
That's the back-story that has most to tell
About the two ways 'transcendental' went,
The Kantian way that cast its lingering spell
On each new cohort in the regiment
Of armchair ruminants whom it befell
Like Noah's curse, the other what you meant
By telling us they go together well,
The canny pragmatist and those whose bent
Runs more to the imaginative heights
Of a sublime whose transcendental modes
Would stretch the power of reason that unites
Our faculties until the thing explodes,
Except that even in its furthest flights
Of streamlined uplift still the mind bears loads
That keep it tending earthward since, by rights,
Its journey's end is that of all the roads
You said converged on the one truth-shaped thing
Worth seeking. This was how to keep the charm
Of fantasy alive, and maybe bring
Its wish to pass, yet let it not do harm
As you thought every fine utopian fling
So far had done, and thus helped to rearm
The thought-crusade of those who sought to swing
Opinion round by sounding the alarm
And tarring liberals with McCarthy's brush.
The trouble is, this fell in all too pat
With something very like that same old rush
To judgement, and too comfortably sat
With what you took as freedom's cause: to push,
If not all things American, then that
Transcendent form of them that, at first blush,
Might seem a fine thing to be aiming at,
Yet loses something of its first appeal
When thoughts of all that's happened in the name
Of those high sentiments begin to steal
Upon us and suggest that we reframe
Our notions of how real world and ideal
Should properly relate. Then what's to blame,
In large part, for the regular raw deal
Inflicted on the losers in this game,
Misfits or rogue-states, is that very knack
Of managing to mix the highest-toned
Professions of intent with a laid-back
Or downright cynic outlook that condoned,
As fit for its good purposes, a stack
Of wrongs, home and abroad, that you disowned
Only in passing. It's that curious lack
Of joined-up thought by which a double-zoned
Philosophy -- the transcendental linked
With a pragmatic view of things that veered,
At times, way off the moral path and winked
At motes and beams alike -- adroitly cleared
Its conscience, though the issues stood distinct,
By a well-practised trick of thought that steered
A zigzag course from high to low and blinked
At just the moments when its pilot feared
Too close a view of what might else have posed
A real and present danger to its hard-
Won sense of certain moral truths disclosed
Only to some choice few. The message jarred,
As you found out, not just on folk disposed
By hopes long disappointed to regard
The holdout hopers from a mindset closed
Against them, or on those too deeply scarred
By various gods that failed, but on a bunch
Of new-left radicals, like us, who shared
A lot of your beliefs but had this hunch,
Quite early on, that we should be prepared
To work out why, when it came to the crunch
Of prime allegiance openly declared,
You'd count the US-bashers out-to-lunch
And start to say more plainly that we'd erred
By thinking its high beacon might be crazed,
Cracked, and its beams distorted so that we
Could best do a repair-job on the glazed
Top dome by calculating the degree
To which its beams were incorrectly phased
With more enlightened thoughts. Then we might see
Clean through the ideology that dazed
Believers in that old 'land of the free'-
Type spirit-raising stuff cooked up to fool
Us into swallowing the usual lies
Put out by those whose most effective tool
For mind-manipulation in the guise
Of soul-perfection came straight from a school
Where the all-round achiever's annual prize
Went to the firmest sticker to that rule
Which said: give them the transcendental highs
Once in a while and then there'd be no end
To the stuff they'd put up with when required,
Or benefit of doubt they'd soon extend
When principle and circumstance conspired
To make sure any principle would bend
As circumstance decreed. No doubt you tired
Of having all the while to dodge and fend
Off brickbats from a bunch of people fired
By social passions you'd have thought in tune,
At least on all the basic points, with your
Idea of how our best selves might commune
In a pragmatic way that knew the score
And saw small chance of any big change soon,
Yet still had social hopes worth living for
Since neither prone nor yet auto-immune
To disappointment. They said: don't ignore
The history of failures and the sad
Track-record, most especially, of calls
For social transformation that went bad
Or came to naught but rather seek what falls
Within the range of upgrades we can add
Without the plane becoming one stalls
Because its rate of climb's more than a tad
Too rapid. Yet if their response still galls
You now, the types (like me) who started out
Your backers in the literary camp
But later found increasing room for doubt,
Then maybe it's because they saw the stamp
Of ideals turned ironically about
And so deployed first shrewdly to revamp
Those social hopes, then as a way to scout
Their proper limits and, if need be, cramp
Their militant or rebel-rousing style
By timely inculcation of the taste
For solvent ironies that bid us smile
With fond indulgence on that chronic waste
Of energies. All this, remember, while
Us lefties, whether Brits or US-based,
Saw their beliefs chucked on the rubbish-pile
By neocons who cynically embraced
High-minded and hard-headed in the clinch
That an old pragmatist like William James
Could still keep more than decent at a pinch,
And even turned right round against the aims
Of warhawk palaeocons -- men every inch
The dark precursors of the bunch whose names
I'll spare you now -- since not a man to flinch
At chronicling his nation's sins and shames
Along with better aspects. Let's be clear:
There's nothing in the least ad hominem
About the issues I've been raising here,
Or nothing that would please the likes of them,
Those analytic types who chose to sneer
At your supposed apostasy, condemn
Your style as an affront to their austere
Word-habits, and avoid a more ad rem
Engagement with your work. Thus nod and wink
Implied that you'd now given up the sort
Of real tough-minded stuff they wouldn't blink
At and elected rather to hold court
In the soft company of such as think
Philosophy's an intertextual sport
Or just one more excuse for spilling ink
In literary ways that won't support
Close scrutiny of the analytic kind
That tells which arguments have hit the mark,
At least for colleagues of a kindred mind.
Thus it presents, or so they'd say, a stark
Memento of the world you left behind
When, mid-career, you opted to embark
On a more wayward course and then fly blind
Since the payback of that free-as-a-lark
Or giddy aerobatic stuff's to leave
You looping wildly just when their technique
Of concept-parsing might have helped retrieve
Terrestrial reference-points by which to seek
Familiar landmarks. Talk like that would peeve
A saint at length, so you did well to tweak
Their verbal dress-codes now and then, or weave
New styles around them, rather than critique
The enterprise head-on since then you'd just
Be falling back on something like the ruse --
As you perceived it -- that the Kantians trust
As a good fall-back strategy to use,
Either when momentarily nonplussed
Or else when there's some point too big to lose
So that the game-plan says: just go for bust
With transcendental back-up and j'accuse
As set refrain. No question: you emerge
Much better placed on all the tick-box counts
Of moral decency than those who'd urge
We read your work in readiness to pounce
On anything that might invite the scourge
Applied so vigorously to denounce
That work, and you, as teetering on the verge
Of 'continental', or -- what this amounts
To in their language-game -- far out beyond
The intellectual pale. Thus devotees
Of Kant are just as likely to respond
That way as all those others prone to seize
Their every chance to reinforce the bond
Of guild-endorsed philosophers and squeeze
Out all such dwellers in the demi-monde
Of disrepute where hard-won expertise
Like theirs sells at a discount while the price
Of shares in Continentals Inc is chalked
Sky-high and sure to double in a trice
(They grumble) when some current fad gets talked
Up in a hybrid style that lets you splice
The chat with old philosophemes that stalked
Mind's corridors till Ockham's fine device
Henceforth ensured that all sound thinkers balked
At such scholastic garbage. Let's accept
That they were wrong, that you were far from sold
On all things continental, that you kept
Close ties within the analytic fold,
And -- above all -- that you were too adept
At finding subtler ways to break the mould
Than to wish their whole culture might be swept
Away and so give them good cause to scold
Your Jacobin designs. Then there's the deep
And not just anecdotal link between
The various sides of you that often leap
Together off the page -- the sense of keen
Yet gentle irony, the will to keep
All aspects of the intellectual scene
Somewhere in view, the scintillating sweep
Of Ideengeschichte that could glean
So much from a review of past ideas,
Like Hegel pragmatised, the root belief
That we do best to hold a course that steers
As far as can be from the moral reef
Marked 'cruelty to others', the two-cheers-
For-reason outlook that takes half a leaf
From Hume the sceptic's book, and then the fears
That thought too closely tied to the motif
Of sovereign Truth might readily be pressed
Into the routine service of some Grand
Inquisitor whose idea of the test
For truthfulness will certainly not stand
Much scrutiny when tried against the best
Of your unholy virtues. This I'd planned
To bring out all along, but then (you guessed!)
The argument got somewhat out of hand
Or (more like) tended to revert to type
And re-stage quarrels that are running still
In quarters where they've not absorbed the hype
About how everyone's now had their fill
Of truth-talk and forgotten the old gripe
That Socrates once aimed at those whose skill
In speaking well enabled them to pipe
Such pleasing tunes that they subdued the will
To truth in their rapt auditors. It's more,
For me, the snag that comes up every time
We want to find some intimate rapport,
Some near-equivalent of perfect rhyme,
Between a thinker's predilection for
The one thought-ladder that could help them climb
Above their own life-indurated store
Of prejudices, and (the point that I'm
Now keen to make in case I've seemed to pick
Too many bones) all those integral traits
Of mind and character -- what made you tick,
In short -- which, present orthodoxy states,
May have their proper role in any thick
Description or biography that rates
Them on their proven tendency to click
With readers, but a stricter code dictates
Can shed no further light. The only place
You really take a line on this is where
You talk about a different sort of case --
Flat opposite to yours -- and say that there
Can be no valid reason to embrace
A creed that has us solemnly declare,
As touching on the amply-vouched disgrace,
Political and moral, of one Herr
Professor Heidegger, the need to take
Account of man and work viewed in the round
And therefore not permit ourselves to make
Exceptions from the rule for such renowned
Philosophers, if only for the sake
Of hanging on to some last common ground
Where intellect and ethics hope to stake
Their claim of being each-to-other bound
In virtue's cause. You didn't go for that
High-minded but, you thought, misguided brand
Of earnest moralising since the flat
Refusal, among some, to understand
How great minds might just not know where it's at,
Ethically speaking, or have morals and
Behaviour like those of an alley-cat,
Was too apt to promote the sort of bland
Consensual thinking currently the most
Conspicuous trademark of a discipline
That's raised conformity to a high boast
And used group-feeling as its means to pin
A 'Steer well clear of this one!' sign or post
A 'Keep off!' notice, then proceed to bin
The offending work. For readers over-dosed
On warnings, you advised: give it a spin,
Give him a hearing, and allow (since it's
Now pretty much beyond dispute) that there's
Another label that quite aptly fits
The thinker in whose work the logos shares
Deep truths unplumbed by all the sharpest wits
From Plato down, and that's the one he bears
In your phrase 'Schwarzwald redneck'. So the bits
In Heidegger worth saving for the heirs
Of Western metaphysics can be cut
And pasted so as to produce a script
Less vibrant with the call of Being but
Much likelier to chime with those who've skipped
A lot of that historic stuff and shut
The book on Dasein's epic. What this stripped-
Down version also skimps is how the hut
He famously hung out in, though equipped
With stove and other basics, put across
The same old tale incessantly rehearsed
Throughout his lucubrations on the loss
Of truth's authentic voice, as in the worst
Of those texts that the faithful try to gloss
As aberrations but which readers versed
In his life-history won't be apt to toss
So blithely out of court. Granted, my first
Intention here (remember?) was to press,
Despite your offstage ironies, the need
That thinking hold its nerve and not regress
To the idea that arguments succeed
By suasive force alone (since what's success,
You might ask, if not getting folk agreed
To see things our way?) or that answering 'yes,
That notion fits in very well indeed
With my belief-set' adds up to a good
Or half-way adequate account of what
Most rightly is -- or should be -- understood
When words like 'truth' or 'knowledge' fill a slot
That 'best belief' won't fill. I said it would
Be better for philosophy (and not
Just so as to provide a livelihood
Or timely academic booster-shot
For tired philosophers) if it hung on
To the most basic item in the stock
Of brand-name goods you thought had long since gone
The way of all such woefully adhoc
Contrivances or strategies to con
The laggards into putting up a mock
Display of expertise whereby to don
The robes of science. This means, pace Locke,
Still searching for some last sine qua non
Of true philosophy, that is, the mode
Of transcendental reasoning that alone --
Or so its adepts claim -- offers a road
To a priori truths that can be known
For sure and quite aside from knowledge owed
To mere sense-certainty. Although we've grown
Suspicious of ideas like this that load
(As you'd say) such a deal of otiose
Conceptual baggage on the heaven-hook
Left dangling from the days of grandiose
High-flying metaphysics, still the book
May not be shut or epilogue be close
In that long thought-adventure that it took
For Geist to bid a first brave adios
To myth or criticism cock a snook
At custom-bound belief. I'd say that we've
A middle course to steer that won't just tip
This way or that and resolutely cleave
To 'honest Uncle Kant' or simply flip,
Like you, the other way, resolve to heave
That stuff clean overboard, and thereby clip
Pure reason's wings. That is, we'd best conceive
Some way that reason can retain its grip
On our beliefs yet, so as not to yield
Straight off to the assorted booby-traps
You laid down for it, come prepared to wield
The kind of argument that fills the gaps
In any concept-system vacuum-sealed
On a priori grounds against a lapse
Of knowledge with the sorts of truth revealed
By opting to revise the mental maps
That drew such clear-cut demarcation lines
Between the twin imperia of Hume's
'Matters of fact' and 'truths of reason'. Mine's
Not the conclusion everyone assumes
Must follow if one takes the force of Quine's
'Two Dogmas' as an argument that dooms
All such distinctions or that undermines
Thought's last defence against the threat that looms
(Although of course you'd find the claim absurd)
When the whole question as to what's a sound,
Truth-apt, or reputable case fit to be heard
And acted on, and what's with justice found
Deficient on that count, goes by the word
Of those best placed to put the word around
Amongst those likewise placed. So it gets blurred,
The precept most philosophers felt bound
To honour until recently, that truth
May come apart from any of its near
(Or not-so-near) replacement terms for sooth-
Saying generally, or -- lest this appear
A choice of phrase offensive or uncouth --
Those sundry substitutes for the idea
Of truth sans phrase. These the Sherlockian sleuth
Would deem defective since designed to steer
Far wide of any thought that 'truth' defined
As 'best belief', or even as what stands
At journey's end for those brave souls inclined
To seek it, cannot all the same join hands
With truth in the objective sense assigned
To word and concept by the strict demands
Of those whose compasses remain aligned
With true magnetic North and point to lands
As yet unreachable by any routes
Marked on our atlases. So there's the nub
Of all I've said: that this, like most disputes
That periodically disturb the club
Of old philosophy's new-found recruits,
Is one where both belligerents could rub
Along quite well if those false absolutes,
Like truth and reason, that you'd have us scrub
From our vocabularies don't reside
Above, beyond, or in a realm remote
From the mundane contingencies you tried
To make us see were all that underwrote
The shape and meaning that events supplied
To lives whose genre was the anecdote,
Not grand recit, and whose narrators vied
One with another not just to promote
Their own-brand truths but more in hope to lend
A new spin to the old roman a fleuve
Of braided story-lines. This then might bend
The talk toward new topics that could serve
At last to knock away all those dead-end
Delusion-props that helped supply the nerve
For spirit's age-old hankering to transcend
Necessity's iron grip without the swerve
Of hooked Lucretian atoms whose slight nudge
This way or that did nothing to assuage
Such all-too-human yearnings. Though you'd judge
It merely a reversion to the stage
Of Kantian tutelage or a hopeless fudge,
Still we need some thought-instrument to gauge
Just what philosophy can do to budge
Our stubborn preconceptions or engage
Creatively yet critically with ways
Of story-telling that may strike a chord
So sympathetic as to gain straight A's
From everyone or get them all on board
And yet, by some unlooked-for turn of phrase
Or stray plot-detail, show how they'd ignored
The one thing that, when hit upon, betrays
How many of the reasons why it scored
So high in their consensus really came
Down chiefly to group-pressure plus a touch
Of wishful thinking and the need to frame
A tale around all this that bears no such
Unwelcome implications as to shame
Our better selves. No doubt we'll often clutch
At straws, or straw-polls, so as to disclaim
All thought of leaning on the feeble crutch
Of self-reliance that the poor old moi
Haissable uses to fend off the gibes
Aimed at it by the crowd whose guiding star
Is one whose kindly light gives back the tribe's
Own predilections, whether such as are
Reliably adjusted to the vibes
Of a whole culture and its thought-bazaar,
Or else the sort the specialist imbibes
Once they're inducted (by all the techniques
Of guild-recruitment you exposed to view
As an ex-member) into various cliques
Or expert subdivisions like the crew
Of trained philosophers. Yet this bespeaks
Another requisite that maybe you
Don't emphasise enough: that any tweaks
To their consensus not go in for too
Much talk of how philosophy has run its course,
Run out of steam, run all its rivers dry,
And so forth, since this might seem to endorse
A narrative denouement that would fly
Clean in the face of your big plan: to force,
Or better yet persuade, that lot to try
Some way around the guild-approved divorce
Between what lets the tenured types get by
With least risk and what lets those with a yen
For certain riskier, more inventive 'kinds
Of writing' claim entitlement to pen
Texts of the sort no rule of genre binds,
Or no such rule as served, time and again,
To house-train undomesticated minds
And save them from their own devices when
Some tell-tale touch of metaphor yet finds
Their weakness out. That's how you seem to treat
The two types as flat opposite, as if
Inventiveness were something so offbeat,
So apt to run a syncopating riff
On thought's four-in-a-bar, that a complete
Exclusion-rule (or else another tiff
Like Plato's with the rhapsode) must defeat
All efforts to remove the lingering whiff
Of scandal that attaches to topoi
Such as -- think Nietzsche/Derrida -- the role
Of figural devices they employ,
Those concept-frontiersmen, whilst on patrol
To make sure nothing like the fate of Troy
Befall philosophy should that old mole,
Horse-shaped or metaphoric, redeploy
Within its city limits. What this whole
Verse-colloquy has tried to do is state
The case (I hope not too perverse a slant
On things) that all your arguments relate
Both ways, that is, to concepts that transplant
By metaphoric means or conjugate
'Poetically' and metaphors that can't
Be subject to exchange at some low rate
Arrived at through our willingness to grant
'Poetic licence'. Curious, then, that it's
Avowedly your one great aim to coax
Us off all versions of the creed that splits
Apart the unity our mind evokes
When not compelled to test its native wits
Against a thought-predicament that pokes
Up only if the intellect permits
Itself to perpetrate a crafty hoax
Of just that sort. I trust your genial shade
Won't take it ill that I've seen fit to nag
Once more at issues you'd hoped to persuade
Us we'd do best at this late stage to tag
'Cut-price old stock', or just allow to fade
From view like those (as Hegel said) that lag
Behind the Zeitgeist in a dull parade
Called by the Owl of Minerva to drag
Out their sad afterlives. Then there's the now
Far off yet vivid memory of a walk
With you round Monticello and of how,
Predictably enough perhaps, the talk
Turned toward Jefferson (no sacred cow
For you but better than the tales they hawk
About him currently), his splendid vow
Against all tyrants, and -- where our paths fork,
Now as back then -- your faith (that seems an apt
Word here) that 'our America', though yet
To be achieved, was the sole nation mapped
By dream-cartographers with compass set
For gorgeous palaces and towers cloud-capped,
To me a baseless fabric though a threat
Should it materialise beyond such rapt
Imagining, to you the unpaid debt
Thought owes to hope. Truth is, although I try
To sort out man from work, or get a fix
On how far hopes like that may underlie
(Let's not say 'undermine') the various tricks
Of your old trade you'd later re-apply
To non-trade purposes, the effort sticks
Each time around at the same point where I
Can't manage to disintricate the mix
Of reasons, motives, causes, temperament,
(Let's say it) ideology, effects
Of US academe on one whose bent
Ran counter, and what any eye detects,
In 'Trotsky and Wild Orchids', as intent
To make amends as well as pay respects
To him, your father-activist, who'd spent
His life (a self-reproach your piece deflects
But can't quite lay to rest) in ways that went
To further emphasise the disconnects
So keenly felt in yours. Yet you present,
As well, a case for writing that neglects
('On its own time') that duty to augment
The public good and, in its place, elects
To cherish private virtues and invent
New styles of self-description that the sects
May do with as they wish. But, since you've lent
My verse a lot more time than it expects,
Best if I now let go (or 'circumvent' --
Your favourite word) these issues one suspects
You never had much time for and content
My quibbling soul with what it recollects
Of welcoming the Rorty text-event
As most benign of modern grapholects.
(c) Christopher Norris 2014
Email: email@example.com
On Sunday forenoon the 7 of July 1776, being too late for
church, I went to see Mr David Hume, who was returned from
London and Bath, just a-dying... I asked him if the thought
of annihilation never gave him any uneasiness. He said not
the least; no more than the thought that he had not been,
as Lucretius observes. 'Well,' said I, 'Mr Hume, I hope to
triumph over you when I meet you in a future state; and
remember you are not to pretend that you was joking with
all this infidelity.' 'No, no,' said he. 'But I shall have
been so long there before you come that it will be nothing
new.' In this style of good humour and levity did I conduct
the conversation. Perhaps it was wrong on so awful a
subject. But as nobody was present, I thought it could have
no bad effect. I however felt a degree of horror, mixed with
a sort of wild, strange, hurrying recollection of my
excellent mother's pious instructions, of Dr. Johnson's
noble lessons, and of my religious sentiments and
affections during the course of my life. I was like a man
in sudden danger eagerly seeking his defensive arms; and I
could not but be assailed by momentary doubts while I had
actually before me a man of such strong abilities and
extensive inquiry dying in the persuasion of being
(from James Boswell, 'An Account of my Last Interview with
David Hume, Esq., partly recorded in my journal, partly
enlarged from memory', 3 March 1777)
It seemed a chance too splendid to be missed.
Johnson sent Boswell up there to report,
From Edinburgh, how the atheist
And sceptic Hume would finally resort
To God in his last hours. That he'd resist
And spurn such comfort the good Doctor thought
A crass conjecture so far down the list
Of likelihoods that nothing now could thwart
The godly folk in their intent to spin
Hume's long awaited death-bed change of heart
As showing both how 'the wages of sin
Is death' and how divine grace can impart
Such nick-of-time redemption. Thus they'd win
The whole debate despite that dodgy start
When faith's best intellects had failed to pin
Down where the errors lay in all his smart
Yet manifestly false (so faith decreed)
Attempts to prove that miracles were just
The joint effect of priest-craft and our need
For fictive consolation. Then our trust
In revelation was a sign that we'd
Been hoodwinked and -- his clincher -- that we must,
If capable of reason, pay no heed
To schoolmen-books best left to gather dust
Since stuffed with metaphysics and the kind
Of reasoning fit for fools. So Boswell took
Off speedily, perhaps in hopes to find
A death-bed convert (though it doesn't look
The sort of mission he'd have most in mind,
That reprobate), but maybe just to book
A bedside place amongst the others lined
Up there as witnesses of how it shook
Hume's atheist creed, and then to take away,
For his (not Johnson's) benefit, a nod,
Wink, jest, or anything that might convey,
To minds alert, that he'd no time for God,
Now or in that mere emptiness that lay
Just hours ahead. This meant the death-watch squad
Could carry off the pious fraud that they
Came solely to promote while his long plod
All the way up from London hadn't been
A waste of time since he'd be well supplied
With thoughts of that un-melancholy scene
Whenever Johnson hit his moral stride,
Found some new sign that Boswell was unclean
In thought or deed, and seized the chance to chide
His loyal yet wayward sidekick, caught between
All those conflicting impulses that vied
In him for some brief moment of control
Over what Hume would call the seamless flow
Of sentiments and Johnson the wracked soul
Enslaved to its desires. Yet even so,
When the last act began, the leading role
Was one the dramaturge would not let go
Since, despite all their stratagems, what stole
A march on them along with the whole show
Was quite in character and went as Hume
Intended, rather than the way they'd planned,
Whether the God-fixated lot with whom
He'd long since learned to deal like an old hand
Or those, like Boswell, predisposed to plume
Themselves on membership of that small band
Of fellow-ironists with mental room
For any hint by which to understand
His subtler drift. Truth is, both parties went
Astray along their preferential lines
In pretty much the different ways he'd meant
Them each to go as readers of the signs,
The Christian lot ignoring his intent
Since focused purely on their own designs
To make the very most of this event
For godly purposes, while what defines
The Boswell error has far more to do
With how interpretations tend to veer
Off course when the sophisticated crew
Of secular decoders choose to steer
A privy course known only to the few.
Thus they suppose that any meaning clear
Enough to twig without a cryptic clue
Must be construed either as insincere
Or else as calling for the kind of gloss --
Ironic, polysemic, hedged about
With queasy qualifiers -- that would toss
All notions of the simple message out
In quest of other codes that cut across
That message and so license them to flout
The basic speech-act maxims. Any loss
Of mutual understanding brought about
By this infraction of the normal modes
Of human intercourse would then be more
Than compensated by the way such codes,
Once brought to notice, prove an open door
Through which the literal sense of things explodes --
To use the sort of hybrid metaphor
Much favoured in this context -- till the nodes
Of stable usage lose their guarantor,
Authorial or divine, and meaning spills
Out on all sides. Absurd to saddle him,
Poor Boswell, with promoting all the ills
That follow when the merest verbal whim,
Once joined to certain dialectic skills,
Enable the interpreter to skim-
Read with a fine dexterity that thrills
The more for going way out on a limb
Of hermeneutic licence. Let's recall
Hume's point about the Jesuits, how they said
One thing but thought another, or how all
Their words and outward show could be misread
At any time since, as at a masked ball,
Put on in order that the talking head
Belie the man within, or guile forestall
The aim of those who'd surely see him dead
Did he but speak his mind. The point's best made
By picturing the scene as he conversed
With friends on all the usual topics, played
Another game of cards, calmly rehearsed
The practical arrangements, and conveyed
His Epicurean message: that the worst
Of death's privations was no worse than they'd
Non-suffered through for aeons before they first
Drew breath. Not (vide Larkin) quite the knock-
Down argument it seems, but still the chief
Reason, I'd guess, that he could gently mock
The pious lot who thought he'd take a leaf
From some book in the ever-ready stock
Of edifying tales whose main motif
Was Faust redeemed or how, just as the clock
Struck twelve, and to the infinite relief
Of all beholders, the lost sheep was found
Or (if we cross to Graham-Greeneland) saved
Midway 'between the stirrup and the ground'.
Yet he foiled all their projects and behaved
With such accustomed grace that all were bound
To deem him neither pious nor depraved
But perfectly himself and still of sound
Mind enough to perceive just what they craved
And turn it to ironic use despite
The many clashing hopes and wishes pinned
To him by those who'd thought to overwrite
His preferred script. They ended up chagrined
To find their crafty strategies played right
Off the game-field by his good humour twinned
With a shrewd sense of how the whole thing might,
In future, get believers to rescind
Their fideist allegiance rather than
The atheists and sceptics to resile
From the beliefs by which their leading man
Showed more adeptly how to hit the style
That might in time persuade those who began
Their vigil wishing solely to revile
His vita ante acta that their plan
For its last scene was a non-starter, while
His civilizing irony eschewed
Such sentiments and added just a touch
More wit to make its point. They might well brood,
Like Johnson, on the consequence of such
Subversive thinking should it be pursued
Beyond those Scots (who didn't count for much,
In the good Doctor's book) to what ensued
Whenever folly kicked away the crutch
Of faith and -- the catastrophe that loomed
So fearful in the not-so-distant past --
Left social order and religion doomed
To civil strife since nothing could hold fast,
It seemed, unless our inner lives assumed
The providential shape that their lot classed
Mere superstition. That's just why he fumed
So much at Milton: God's decrees miscast
As politics became the very bane
Of any soul, like his, resolved to seek
Its own salvation far from the profane
Arena of a millenarian clique
Whose vaunted freedoms gestured to the reign
Of Christ on earth but reached their devilish peak
(He thought) when there was nothing to restrain
The sceptics' final push. Let's not critique
His view of all this from a standpoint based
On Humean principles but try to think
Just how a soul, like Johnson's, firmly braced
Against its private demons came to link
That psychomachia with the terrors faced
By a whole nation standing on the brink
Of what, they feared, would in a moment waste
All their brave efforts to remove the kink
Of prejudice that drove the strongest minds
To self-destructive zeal. What flipped their stance
From high to low was the same force that binds
Affect to intellect and may enhance
The power of thought yet regularly blinds
The self to all those motives that may chance
To spur it into thought. If Hume then finds
No choreographer behind the dance
Of streaming atoms jolted in the void
And randomly assembling into some
Configuration soon to be destroyed
By whatsoever clinamen might come
To break their fragile shape, it needs no Freud
To figure out why he'd choose to keep mum
About all that as death approached, avoid
The wished-for showdown, and prefer to thumb
His nose at all the pious brethren not
By some shrewdly premeditated coup
De grace but more with reference to what,
By grace of sceptic intellect, he knew
Would later on ensure the other lot
Belonged to unlamented temps perdu
And so in good time grant the genial Scot
(No thanks to Johnson) all that should accrue
To mankind's benefactors. It's a tale
Of how Hume's civil irony induced
A major shake-up on the Richter scale
Of values, and -- since I've just cited Proust --
How subtle shifts of feeling may prevail
At length against the value-codes we're used
To holding sacrosanct and so derail
Those one-track rulers of the moral roost
Who'd certainly have counted Boswell mad
For any sceptic wavering he confessed
To after the event although he'd had
To keep them well concealed at the behest
Of his great master. Plus, they said, his bad
Past conduct was itself a manifest
And cautionary token of how glad
He should be to embrace this as a test
Of his devotion to the truth of those
Same doctrines Hume professed to hold in scorn
Yet surely must have clung to in the throes
Of his last sickness. Scarcely to be borne,
By them at least, the idea that he chose
Quite simply not to let himself be worn
Down by their constant rubbing of his nose
In their bleak view of 'human nature' torn
From the worst bits of that pernicious text
They took as holy writ, but to enact,
In dying, the humanity that vexed
Those pious scandal-mongers since it lacked
All sense of what so mightily perplexed
Poor Boswell, let alone what terrors racked
His friend and mentor waiting for the next
And last report. For Johnson, the mere fact
Of Hume's demise would also bring such news
As either served more deeply to inure
His mind to self-assault or turned the screws
Down hard and let him know he'd now endure
The utmost of its powers to disabuse
His stricken faith of all that might procure
Brief respite till some new vicarious ruse
Of sceptic doubt regained its old allure.
(c) Christopher Norris 2014
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Like most countries, Russia is covered with a net of railways that can take you anywhere within and across Russia's borders. We have documentaries about the people who built the oldest Russian railways and those who travel on board the ultra-modernistic super-fast trains on RTDoc.
Thabang Motsei is thrilled with the opportunity to take the world's longest railway journey– the Trans-Siberian but not all of her colleagues are as excited as she is about the coming trip. Meanwhile, in Moscow, Egor Piskunov shows us what he is doing back home and also takes us on tour to the newsroom.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Grand Design
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More informationTHE FIRST MAJOR WORK IN NEARLY A DECADE BY ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT THINKERS-A MARVELOUSLY CONCISE BOOK WITH NEW ANSWERS TO THE ULTIMATE QUESTIONS OF LIFE
When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the nature of reality? Why are the laws of nature so finely tuned as to allow for the existence of beings like ourselves? And, finally, is the apparent "grand design" of our universe evidence of a benevolent creator who set things in motion-or does science offer another explanation?
The most fundamental questions about the origins of the universe and of life itself, once the province of philosophy, now occupy the territory where scientists, philosophers, and theologians meet-if only to disagree. In their new book, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow present the most recent scientific thinking about the mysteries of the universe, in nontechnical language marked by both brilliance and simplicity.
In The Grand Design they explain that according to quantum theory, the cosmos does not have just a single existence or history, but rather that every possible history of the universe exists simultaneously. When applied to the universe as a whole, this idea calls into question the very notion of cause and effect. But the "top-down" approach to cosmology that Hawking and
Mlodinow describe would say that the fact that the past takes no definite form means that we create history by observing it, rather than that history creates us. The authors further explain that we ourselves are the product of quantum fluctuations in the very early universe, and show how quantum theory predicts the "multiverse"-the idea that ours is just one of many universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with different laws of nature.
Along the way Hawking and Mlodinow question the conventional concept of reality, posing a "model-dependent" theory of reality as the best we can hope to find. And they conclude with a riveting assessment of M-theory, an explanation of the laws


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by Lucy Taylor
26th august 2009 that's when my life fell apart, the one person that was always there & like a mother to me had gone from my life I was 16 at the time but I did not know until last year that she was fighting cancer for 5 years and I was unaware as my parents did not tell me. Then when finally she became so ill she demanded to see me at the hospital & I went to see her I could not believe my eyes this wasn't the woman that my mom was describing as "ok" she was really ill at this point but I had to stay strong for my mom, but In the November my mom and dad divorced so now what I was I supposed to do?. So I had no time to grieve nearly 5 years later I still miss her so much I just wish I could here her voice and ask for reassurance I no longer feel safe with anything as the woman that protected me from everything has gone. I still can't come to terms with this how do I cope with this I'm now 20 years old I wish I could cope with this but it is worse than I thought, I haven't been to my grandads house in 5 years as I'm too scared because the last time I was there so was my nanny. I am now out of options of what to do:( I miss her so much
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All public logsCombined display of all available logs of Tolkien Gateway. You can narrow down the view by selecting a log type, the username (case-sensitive), or the affected page (also case-sensitive).
- 18:03, 26 November 2011 Mithbot (Talk | contribs) marked revision 176037 of Valier - Queens of the Valar patrolled (automatic)


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The Shagara was a naga spearman. He was a part of the naga and human armies during the Clan War and on the Second Day of Thunder.[1]
Hitomi Edit
Shagara fought in the Siege of Sleeping Mountain. [2]
External Links Edit
- Shagara (Shadowlands)
- ↑ Shagara (Fire and Shadows flavor)
- ↑ Shagara (Siege of Sleeping Mountain flavor)
|This article is a stub. That means that it has been started, but is incomplete. You can help by adding to the information here.


text:
The following terminology is intended to provide a general understanding of some terms generally used by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC). The list focuses on some of the important aspects of the relationship between INAC and the people it serves — First Nations, Inuit and Northerners.
These terms are listed in Words First: An Evolving Terminology Relating to Aboriginal Peoples in Canada , compiled by the Department's Communications Resources Directorate.
Aboriginal peoples: The descendants of the original inhabitants of North America. The Canadian Constitution recognizes three groups of Aboriginal people — Indians, Métis and Inuit. These are three separate peoples with unique heritages, languages, cultural practices and spiritual beliefs.
Aboriginal rights: Rights that some Aboriginal peoples of Canada hold as a result of their ancestors' long-standing use and occupancy of the land. The rights of certain Aboriginal peoples to hunt, trap and fish on ancestral lands are examples of Aboriginal rights. Aboriginal rights vary from group to group depending on the customs, practices and traditions that have formed part of their distinctive cultures.
Aboriginal self-government: Governments designed, established and administered by Aboriginal peoples under the Canadian Constitution through a process of negotiation with Canada and, where applicable, the provincial government.
Aboriginal title: A legal term that recognizes an Aboriginal interest in the land. It is based on the long-standing use and occupancy of the land by today's Aboriginal peoples as the descendants of the original inhabitants of Canada.
band: A body of Indians for whose collective use and benefit lands have been set apart or money is held by the Crown, or declared to be a band for the purposes of the Indian Act. Each band has its own governing band council, usually consisting of one chief and several councillors. Community members choose the chief and councillors by election, or sometimes through custom. The members of a band generally share common values, traditions and practices rooted in their ancestral heritage. Today, many bands prefer to be known as First Nations.
Bill C-31: The pre-legislation name of the 1985 Act to Amend the Indian Act. This act eliminated certain discriminatory provisions of the Indian Act, including the section that resulted in Indian women losing their Indian status when they married non-Status men. Bill C-31 enabled people affected by the discriminatory provisions of the old Indian Act to apply to have their Indian status and membership restored.
custom: A traditional Aboriginal practice. For example, First Nations peoples sometimes marry or adopt children according to custom, rather than under Canadian family law. Band councils chosen "by custom" are elected or selected by traditional means, rather than by the election rules contained in the Indian Act.
First Nation: A term that came into common usage in the 1970s to replace the word "Indian," which some people found offensive. Although the term First Nation is widely used, no legal definition of it exists. Among its uses, the term "First Nations peoples" refers to the Indian peoples in Canada, both Status and non-Status. Some Indian peoples have also adopted the term "First Nation" to replace the word "band" in the name of their community.
Indian: Indian peoples are one of three groups of people recognized as Aboriginal in the Constitution Act, 1982. It specifies that Aboriginal people in Canada consist of Indians, Inuit and Métis. Indians in Canada are often referred to as: Status Indians, non-Status Indians and Treaty Indians.
Status Indian: A person who is registered as an Indian under the Indian Act. The act sets out the requirements for determining who is an Indian for the purposes of the Indian Act.
non-Status Indian: An Indian person who is not registered as an Indian under the Indian Act.
Treaty Indian: A Status Indian who belongs to a First Nation that signed a treaty with the Crown.
Indian Act: Canadian federal legislation, first passed in 1876, and amended several times since.
It sets out certain federal government obligations and regulates the management of Indian reserve lands, Indian moneys and other resources. Among its many provisions, the Indian Act currently requires the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to manage certain moneys belonging to First Nations and Indian lands and to approve or disallow First Nations by-laws. In 2001, the national initiative Communities First: First Nations Governance was launched, to consult with First Nations peoples and leadership on the issues of governance under the Indian Act. The process will likely take two to three years before any new law is put in place.
Indian status: An individual's legal status as an Indian, as defined by the Indian Act.
Innu: Naskapi and Montagnais First Nations (Indian) peoples who live in Northern Quebec and Labrador.
Inuvialuit: Inuit who live in the Western Arctic.
Inuit: An Aboriginal people in Northern Canada, who live in Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Northern Quebec and Northern Labrador. The word means "people" in the Inuit language — Inuktitut. The singular of Inuit is Inuk.
land claims: In 1973, the federal government recognized two broad classes of claims — comprehensive and specific. Comprehensive claims are based on the assessment that there may be continuing Aboriginal rights to lands and natural resources. These kinds of claims come up in those parts of Canada where Aboriginal title has not previously been dealt with by treaty and other legal means. The claims are called "comprehensive" because of their wide scope. They include such things as land title, fishing and trapping rights and financial compensation. Specific claims deal with specific grievances that First Nations may have regarding the fulfilment of treaties. Specific claims also cover grievances relating to the administration of First Nations lands and assets under the Indian Act.
Métis: People of mixed First Nation and European ancestry who identify themselves as Métis, as distinct from First Nations people, Inuit or non-Aboriginal people. The Métis have a unique culture that draws on their diverse ancestral origins, such as Scottish, French, Ojibway and Cree.
the North: Land in Canada located north of the 60th parallel. INAC's responsibilities for land and resources in the Canadian North relate only to Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon.
Nunavut: The territory created in the Canadian North on April 1, 1999 when the former Northwest Territories was divided in two. Nunavut means "our land" in Inuktitut. Inuit, whose ancestors inhabited these lands for thousands of years, make up 85 percent of the population of Nunavut. The territory has its own public government.
off-reserve: A term used to describe people, services or objects that are not part of a reserve, but relate to First Nations.
oral history: Evidence taken from the spoken words of people who have knowledge of past events and traditions. This oral history is often recorded on tape and then put in writing. It is used in history books and to document claims.
reserve: Tract of land, the legal title to which is held by the Crown, set apart for the use and benefit of an Indian band.
surrender: A formal agreement by which a band consents to give up part or all of its rights and interests in a reserve. Reserve lands can be surrendered for sale or for lease, on certain conditions.
tribal council: A regional group of First Nations members that delivers common services to a group of First Nations.
This general information is provided as a brief overview only. The provisions of the Indian Act, its regulations, other federal statutes and their interpretation by the courts take precedence over the content of this information sheet.


text:
SVINDAL can come home in front at the main expense of fellow recent winner Tiger Reigns. Kevin Ryan's gelding has been given a break since winning three months ago at Wolverhampton. That was off a mark of 65 and he has a 5lb loftier perch to race from this afternoon, but if he builds on that first win of his career then he must have a solid chance. If he flops back on turf then it may pay to side with Tiger Reigns who impressed when winning at Catterick a month ago. That was on quick ground but his previous third at this track was on heavy going so the ground may not be a big problem and a mark of 68 for this handicap debut may be lenient. Haulage Lady and Island Chief return from a break, whilst Speed Dating steps up in trip for his handicap debut and on breeding he should handle the ground. Any market move for Hawkeythenoo would be interesting, but for the winner we are happy to side with Svindal.
Svindal (IRE) 4-1 (9-1) Led and keen, headed over 2f out, led again and edged right over 1f out, soon driven, ran on well, won at Wolverhampton 1m 1f 3yo hcp (5) pol in Jan beating Mullitovermaurice (8-13) by shd, 9 ran.
Tapis Wizard 33-1 (9-7) Slowly into stride, held up in rear, headway on inside over 1f out, never able to reach leaders, 7th of 13, 9l behind Postman (8-13) at Nottingham 1m hcp 0-70 (5) gs in Apr.
Tiger Reigns 15-8 (8-13) In touch, ridden halfway, challenged over 1f, driven to lead close home, won at Catterick 6f mdn stks (5) gf in Apr beating Street Spirit (8-8) by 3/4l, 9 ran.
Hit The Switch 25-1 (8-5) Tracked leader on outer to 2f out, soon ridden and weakened quickly over 1f out, last of 10, 8l behind Seek The Fair Land (8-10) at Kempton 7f 3yo hcp 0-80 (4) pol in Apr.
Haulage Lady (IRE) 10-1 (9-0) With leaders stand's side group, every chance 2f out, one pace, 4th of 13, 7l behind Allformary (9-0) at Newcastle 7f 2yo mdn fll (5) hvy in Oct.
Island Chief 4-1 (8-11) Led after 1f, ridden 3f out, headed over 1f out, weakened final furlong, 3rd of 9, 7l behind Paint Splash (8-1) at Southwell 7f 2yo sell stks (6) fbs in Dec.
Mr Freddy (IRE) 15-2 (8-4) 6th of 18, 7l behind River Captain (9-4) at Epsom Downs 1m 3yo hcp 0-75 (5) gd in Apr.
Speed Dating 66-1 (9-3) Slowly into stride, always rear, last of 12, 10l behind Bab Al Salam (9-3) at Lingfield 7f 2yo mdn stks (4) pol in Oct.
Hawkeyethenoo (IRE) 6-1 (9-2) Slowly into stride, rushed up to chase leaders over 6f out, went 2nd over 3f out until 2f out, soon hung left, weakened over 1f out, 6th of 12, 14l behind Recession Proof (9-6) at Wolverhampton 1m 1f 2yo hcp (6) pol in Oct.


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The Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary Sanjay Patel has told NDTV that the Board's Annual General Meeting will not be held till N Srinivasan is reinstated as BCCI chief.
Srinivasan remains suspended by the Supreme Court till investigation into 2013 Indian Premier League spot-fixing and betting scandal is completed. The Board has meanwhile called a Working Committee meeting on September 26.
According to the BCCI constitution, the AGM must be completed before September 30 but the Board is citing technicalities to defer the meeting.
"AGM is to be held after the president is back in power. Accounts cannot be signed without a president," Board secretary Sanjay Patel told NDTV.
A group of Srinivasan loyalists met in Chennai on Sunday to show their solidarity with the suspended BCCI boss. It is learnt from sources that Srinivasan will contest for the president's post once again. His name will be proposed by East Zone, whose turn it is to elect the BCCI president.
The BCCI's decision could invite legal issues. As per the constitution, the presence of the president is not mandatory in an AGM.


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Luc Besson has had plenty of hits including Leon and The Fifth Element but the 21st century had marked a pretty dry spell for the filmmaker, apart from those naff Arthur and the Invisibles animated flicks.
Then he was back suddenly and in a huge way with action sci-fi Lucy starring Scarlett Johansson and it seems he's keeping up the pace with another huge film getting close to release.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is adapted from the French comic book series Valérian and Laureline and is the biggest film Besson has made by far, with a budget close to $200 million.
Looking at the first teaser, it's not hard to see where that cash was spent.
That's a heck of a lot of CG. Honestly there's so much it's looking a little like a video game, but we're going to go ahead and hope that the final film is a little less plastic and weightless.
The cast is interesting, with Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne front and centre, while there's a cameo for none other than Rihanna. Clive Owen, John Goodman, Ethan Hawke and Rutger Hauer also feature, though some might be playing effects driven aliens.
The plot is about time and space travelling superagents working for the human race in the titular city in the stars, trying to foil some evil plot. It's looking pretty light hearted about it at the moment.
Initial thoughts, this might be too expensive and a tad too odd to really make a huge profit but it's nice to see people still trying the space opera, even if it rarely works.
Valerian is out in summer 2017.


text:
Often I work with clients who are unaware that they are being verbally abusive. Many times it is overt … laughing while the spouse is talking. But, sometimes it is covert … giving the silent treatment.
We hear a lot about physical abuse. But, the subject of verbal abuse is often ignored. Abuse is defined as the oppression of one person over the other. This can be defined as "power over." Power over kills the spirit. This type of power controls and dominates. On the other hand, personal power nourishes the spirit. This is exhibited by demonstrating mutual respect, trust, and empathy for your partner.
So what does verbal abuse look like? Well, in verbally abusive relationships inequality, competition, manipulation, hostility, control and negating are the common themes. Abusers feel powerless. So, often through manipulation, they find ways to get what they want either overtly or covertly.
Partly, because of their powerlessness, verbal abusers strive for dominance. They are unwilling to accept their partner as an equal. Therefore, they negate their partners' perceptions, experiences, accomplishments, and even their hopes and dreams.
There are several forms of verbal abuse. I will define just a few. Besides name calling, verbal abuse includes: withholding, countering, discounting, making fun, blocking and diverting, accusing and blaming, and judging and criticizing.
Withholding often comes in the form of the "silent treatment." Your accuser may punish you by refusing to talk to you. Your common response may be to try to engage him or her in a conversation or to defend yourself. This, as you know, does not solve the problem. Try ignoring them, keeping busy, or leaving the house for awhile.
Countering is when your accuser discounts you and puts you down. This is a very serious form of abuse. How should you respond to countering? Ask them to stop. Do not say anything else. When they tells you that your perception is wrong, it is as though they have stepped into your body and mind and then negated your experience. Remember that you have the right to feel what you feel and to think what you think.
Blocking and diverting takes place when you ask a question and your accuser blocks you from obtaining the answer. Such as, "Where were you last night?" And he or she responds with: "Why are you asking me this?" Or he or she changes the subject completely. It is imperative that you continue to patiently ask your question without getting sidetracked.
If your accuser tells you that you are trying to start a fight, that you are imagining things, twisting things around, or inaccurately telling the story, then you are being accused and blamed. Again, don't try to defend or explain. That puts you in a child-like role. Calmly state to your accuser that their manner of speaking to you is unacceptable.
If you are being verbally abused, then you are most likely a victim of judgment and criticism. Do not buy into their perceptions. Your accuser is not a court of law, a Supreme Court justice, or God. Labeling you violates your boundaries. Remember, your accuser is not qualified to define who you are. Simply put: Do not engage.
Trust your own feelings and perceptions. Don't blame yourself for the abuse. Set limits with your partner, seek a counselor, or join a self-help group. Most importantly, keep this in mind: You deserve to be treated with respect. It begins with you.
For more information regarding verbally abusive relationships, read, "The Verbally Abusive Relationship," by Patricia Evans.
• Dr. Kristina Welker obtained her doctorate in psychology and is a licensed professional counselor, a life coach and member of the Ahwatukee Behavioral Health Network. Reach her at (480) 893-6767 or firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Although the Avatar TV shows are considered Western animation, Avatar and most Western animated shows are actually animated in Korea to save money. Which is why there is a bit of credibility to this:
This is what appears to be an unfinished linetest for a scene from Avatar: Legend of Korra. In the scene, what looks to be Korra is fighting various other people with Martial Arts.
The fact that the whole video is from a Korean blog, and the animation being very similiar in style to Avatar: The Last Airbender, it makes the chances of this being real a bit higher.
As it was apprently removed from the blog, meaning it's real, let's have a look at it in Youtube form.
Please stay civil. You should not harass other users or their views.