Philosopher anticant's thought for the day:
"Inside every pragmatist there is a romantic trying to get out."
- PAUL FOOT
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
14 comments:
I think I agree.
can you clarify?
Good morning Anticant
Ah, the Ringmaster is cracking his whip!
I will try, Zola, when I get back this afternoon from my weekly visit to the hospice.
Hop you've no more snow clearing to do.
I meant "hope", but if you have, get hopping!
That's Paul Foot been reading his Lakoff & Johnson, then :o)
Have YOU read Lakoff & Johnson, Smartie?
Smarties!!!
I like smarties.
That another thing an exile misses.
used to throw a tube of smarties all around the house when i returned from a few days work away. the kids would hunt for them and eat them up and give me and the missus some ( what shall we call it ?) quality fast-time together.
I read 'Metaphors' about 10 years ago. It's very applicable and useful for English language teachers. Not that the overwhelming majority of them, poor ignorant saps, would know.
Outside every romantic, is there a pragmatist trying to get in?
"Stop your delusions, sunshine! Get real - wake up! Take some responsibility! Smell the coffee!"
The Foot quote was from his book on "The Politics of Harold Wilson"! What it means to me is that no-one is all of a piece, even though we veer in one direction more than the other.
"Metaphors We Live By" was recently reissued with a new Afterword. I still think it's one of the most interesting books on the subject. The new Lakoff & Johnson book which I'm just reading is "Philosophy in the Flesh" - a denial of dualism which I find convincing. The following link is to Lakoff's think-tank [another of them, Jose!]
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/
Have you read Paul Foot's posthumous 'piece de resistance' :
The Vote - How It Was Won and How It Was Undermined
A great book by a great socialist.
No. I haven't time to read everything, I'm afraid. But I've ordered the 'Matrix' book.
I have rather more simple tastes in books,the one to hand at the moment being
Myths and Legends of the Middle Ages by H.A.Guerber.
" Such is the way of the world.
They say to the lucky,
'Long may you live in good health',
and friends he finds in abundance.
When, however,ill fortune befalls
him,alone must he bear it."
A perfectly lovely gem from a charity shop, no date, so may well be a first edition, but no matter, I am enjoying it.
Adam Smith fits this theme rather well I think. Until, that is, the likes of Maggie T and BeeGeeBliar pretended to be experts on it all and set up that disgusting Institute.
Which Adam Smith, Zola? The Smith of the Wealth of Nations, Smith the more dryly pragmatic? Or Smith of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, perhaps a little more romantic, and certainly more psychologically astute as to what moves society.
Post a Comment