Tag Archives: Nick Bostrom

Resurrection

December 4, 2024 – 3:49 pm

White rooster, brown chickens, behind a chain-link fence
From a walk around the neighborhood
Tarabya, Istanbul, Wednesday, October 9, 2024

There were a couple of tweets on the eve of Easter:

Just a reminder to make sure that you preach a doctrine of the resurrection tomorrow that is not reducible to that of the old IWW song “Joe Hill”

It’s a good song! I find it moving! But if that’s all we have to say about the resurrection (and I have heard many sermons that suggest that it is) – well, we should all be doing something else with our lives.

Fortunately, of course, it’s not all we have to say.

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By David Pierce | Posted in Maugham | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

The Divided Line

October 31, 2021 – 6:26 pm

Index to this series

We are still in the latter part of Book VI of Plato’s Republic, where Socrates undertakes to explain the education of the philosopher-kings (502c–d). They are not literally so called, as we noted last time. They are going to need to “be able to bear the greatest studies” (503e), and “the idea of the good is the greatest study” (505a). People are confused about what the good is:

  • many say it is pleasure;
  • a few, knowledge (505b).

It rather the case that

  • so the Good makes it possible to have
    • knowledge (508d), and perhaps even
    • pleasure (509a),
  • as the sun makes it possible to see (508b–d).

We looked at that much last time.

Sun through the leaves of planes
Dünya Barış Parkı 2021.10.30

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By David Pierce | Posted in absolute presuppositions, Harper’s, Philosophy, Plato | Also tagged , , , | Comments (9)