Changing Habits

"A very slight change in our habits is sufficient to destroy our sense of our daily reality, and the reality of the world about us; the moment we pass out of our habits we lose all sense of permanency and routine”
George Moore quotes (English Philosopher one of the fathers of the analytic philosophy. 1873-1958)

Modernism

Some commentators define Modernism as a socially progressive trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve and reshape their environment with the aid of practical experimentation, scientific knowledge, or technology.

The Petrarchan Conceit

Petrarchan conceit

The Petrarchan conceit, used in love poetry, exploits a particular set of images for comparisons with the despairing lover and his unpitying but idolized mistress. For instance, the lover is a ship on a stormy sea, and his mistress "a cloud of dark disdain"; or else the lady is a sun whose beauty and virtue shine on her lover from a distance.

The paradoxical pain and pleasure of lovesickness is often described using oxymoron, for instance uniting peace and war, burning and freezing, and so forth. But images which were novel in the sonnets of Petrarch became clichés in the poetry of later imitators. Romeo uses hackneyed Petrarchan conceits when describing his love for Rosaline as "bright smoke, cold fire, sick health".

Treasury Bond Yields

“Treasury bond yields will decline further,” said Hiromasa Nakamura, who invests in Treasuries in Tokyo at Mizuho Asset Management Co., which oversees the equivalent of $42 billion and is part of Japan’s third-biggest bank. “The economy is very fragile. Inflation is subdued.”

Camus on Order and Reason

In his essay “Nuptials at Tipasa,” Camus captured his attachment to this wild and sensual world: “Other than the sun, the wild odors and our own kisses, everything seems futile. […] Here, I leave others to contemplate order and reason. My whole being is overwhelmed by the promiscuousness of nature and the sea.”

The Concept of Mind--Gilbert Ryle

The dogma of the Ghost in the Machine ... maintains that there exist both bodies and minds; that there occur physical processes and mental processes; that there are mechanical causes of corporeal movements and mental causes of corporeal movements.
— Gilbert Ryle
The Concept of Mind (1949)

A myth ....Gilbert Ryle

A myth is, of course, not a fairy story. It is the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another. To explode a myth is accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them.

Norwegian Intellectual

Jostein Gaarder /ˈju:staɪn ˈgɔːrdər/ (born 8 August 1952 in Oslo) is a Norwegian intellectual and author of several novels, short stories and children's books. Gaarder often writes from the perspective of children, exploring their sense of wonder about the world. He often uses metafiction in his works, writing stories within stories.

Gaarder was born into a pedagogical family. His best known work is the novel Sophie's World, subtitled A Novel about the History of Philosophy. This popular work has been translated into fifty-three languages; there are over thirty million copies in print.[1]

In 1997, he established the Sophie Prize together with his wife Siri Dannevig. This prize is an international environment and development prize (USD 100,000 = 77,000 €), awarded annually. It is named after the novel.

A Lucid State of Tranquility

Ataraxia (Ἀταραξία "tranquility") is a Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus for a lucid state of robust tranquility, characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry.

Epicurus

For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia—peace and freedom from fear—and aponia—the absence of pain—and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and evil; death is the end of both body and soul and should therefore not be feared; the gods do not reward or punish humans; the universe is infinite and eternal; and events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.

Why Risk Nothing?

“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.”--
Leo F. Buscaglia

B.B. Warfield

B.B. Warfield
1851-1921

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield was professor of theology at Princeton Seminary from 1887 to 1921. Some conservative Presbyterians consider him to be the last of the great Princeton theologians before the split in 1929 that formed Westminster Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

During his tenure, his primary thrust (and that of the seminary) was an authoritative view of the Bible. This view was held in contrast to the emotionalism of the revival movements, the rationalism of higher criticism, and the heterodox teachings of various New religious movements that were emerging. The seminary held fast to the Reformed confessional tradition -- that is, it faithfully followed the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Warfield was a thoroughgoing evidentialist and the most prominent exponent of the Old Princeton school.

Christianity and Collectivism

“It is true that historic Christianity is in conflict at many points with the collectivism of the present day; it does emphasize, against the claims of society, the worth of the individual soul. It provides for the individual a refuge from all the fluctuating currents of human opinion, a secret place of meditation where a man can come alone into the presence of God. It does give a man courage to stand, if need be, against the world; it resolutely refuses to make of the individual a mere means to an end, a mere element in the composition of society. It rejects altogether any means of salvation which deals with men in a mass; it brings the individual face to face with his God.”
― J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism

Faith is Intellectual

“Faith is indeed intellectual; it involves an apprehension of certain things as facts; and vain is the modern effort to divorce faith from knowledge. But although faith is intellectual, it is not only intellectual. You cannot have faith without having knowledge; but you will not have faith if you have only knowledge.”
― J. Gresham Machen

Old School Presbyterians

Just because the preaching of the Word is so great a task the church must devote itself to it alone. For the Church to undertake other activities, not indissolubly bound up with this one, is a colossal blunder, because it inevitably results in neglect of its proper ask. Let not the church degenerate into a social club. Let not the church go into the entertainment business. Let not the church take sides on such aspects of economics, politics, or natural science as are not dealt with in the Word of God. And let the church be content to teach special, not general revelation. Let the church be the church.

We may add further that since this was the only task given to the Church by her King, the Church should confine herself to carrying out this task and this task alone.”

Old School Presbyterians

Old School Presbyterians are committed to the idea that the Bible, which is the Word of God, is entirely sufficient for everything in our faith, life, and practice and we do not need to add anything of our own, nor should we. Therefore our worship is to be ordered according to God’s instructions, and not according to our imaginations or traditions or in any way God has not prescribed for us.

Self-Satisfaction and Achievement

You have to wonder at times what you're doing out there. Over the years, I've given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.

Maybe You are behind the times philosopher?

Philosopher Alain de Botton, the author of Status Anxiety, said Twitter represented "a way of making sure you are permanently connected to somebody and somebody is permanently connected to you, proving that you are alive.