| Drama, Poems, Essays |
COMING SOON |
|
It is now August 29, 2004. In the last two years I have begun new essays about interesting topics. I have read an enormous amount. I don't feel the new essays are yet ready for prime time. One is about barbarian invasions and migrations throughout history, and their parallels and implications for today. I hope to write about democracy, its forms and requirements, and the apparent direction of democratic reforms. I am writing a piece on my neighbour and friend Dean J. Will. I had thought to revise my meandering two-part "essay" about Israel, but it appears this is impossible. For now it is what it is and has to be. Part of me wants to chuck writing essays, and write good poems or work on my play. I started some poems, but when one starts cold, without much inspiration, it's difficult to make the wheels turn. So I have been working on The Tragedy of Hektor and Andromake. A scenario is slowly coming . . . I will also be writing more about existentialism, especially William Barrett's ideas about it. I have started essays on the philosophers John Dewey and George Berkeley. I want to write a good deal more about William James and pragmatism. I am certain I will write about American anarchist Lysander Spooner (1808-1877). I respect Spooner a great deal -- he was really radical -- but for the first time, I am beginning to see problems about his views. I see around them . . . I should write pieces about the philosophers John Locke (1632-1704), Benedict de Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz. # # # I seem to have misplaced my efforts to redesign this Web site, to make it frameless and more consistent in appearance. As I have explained before, I have now enjoyed my frame design for many months. It's colourful. But, alas, frames have a bad reputation among Web designers. So perhaps I could improve my site by following the advice of professionals and eliminating the green vertical navigation frame you see on your left. I could then replace that frame with a similar navigation strip at the left of each page. According to the pros, this is better Web design. I don't know whether I will carry through the change. It's a lot of work for what might look the same in the end. # # # I started to write an essay on anti-Semitism, but I don't seem to have anything to say: I'm against it. I want to write on principles -- what are they, and how important are they? I hope to write on the two important Canadian communications theorists, Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan. Innis was a very useful intellectual, Canada's chief economic historian. He laid the foundations for understanding the economic history of this country. He also came to an understanding of the nature and importance of communications which was McLuhan's starting place. Down the road I will discuss the relationship between philosophy and religion. After that, spirituality and atheism. I still have a few ideas I hope to incorporate into the essay on "Anarchism versus Government". More from my heroic play Hektor and Andromake. One or two remaining previously published poems. More previously unpublished poems (some good, some minor). Some of my essays are part of my criticism of the philosophy of Ayn Rand. They may eventually merge into one work, probably about my philosophy vis-à-vis hers. My essays on existentialism are likely to merge into one, as are my essays on Israel and the Palestinians and my essays on Canadian subjects. I feel increasingly confident about my philosophic ideas. I seem to be making a new synthesis of (old?) philosophic ideas, though perhaps Scott Ryan has beaten me to part of where I want to go. My philosophy begins with a discussion of what philosophy is, how it originated, what evidence is, and what "proof" of ideas in philosophy consists of; in short, epistemology (the study of knowledge). What is certainty? I discuss intuition, ideas that one can't believe, and, especially, ideas that one can't but believe are true. (Vide Karl Popper, um, in The Logic of Discovery.) God is much talked of, and prayed to, but makes a non-appearance. Kant and Aquinas's arguments for the existence of God. Anselm's ontological argument. The argument from design. Leibniz and perfection. Then time and causality, Hume and identity make a guest appearance. Then I switch to the nature of the interaction between the (gradually conscious, then more conscious and aware) subject, memory, and objects. Discussion about the hypothetical exterior world. Idealism, kinds of realism. Something in between? Talk about Hobbes and the Scottish commonsense philosophers. Then, by a commodious vicus of something-or-other I move toward Ayn Rand's metaphysics and epistemology (with a few quibbles). I discuss Rand's ideas of concept-formation and certainty. Blanshard. I discuss Rand's view of the "analytic-synthetic dichotomy". (A bow to Mill's Logic and to W.V.O. Quine.) Since it appears that Kant created the analytic-synthetic dichotomy (or first observed it), he appears from behind the curtain. Attacks on and dismissal of metaphysics since Hume. Kant's categories are discussed in the light of modern psychology. From there a further mention of God and existentialism, an anthropology of human development, and then an egoistic ethics. Casuistry is mentioned. The social nature of human beings is mentioned, and the implications thereof for living in the world. Rorty. From the social ethics we arrive at politics and aesthetics. Discussion of each in the light of experience and values. Rand and rights. Rawls and "social justice". Return to discussion of existentialism, Sartre, Heidegger, ultimate values, aesthetics, science, thermodynamics, meaning, mortality, intelligence, the ultimate fate of humanity and life. Or so I think at this point. I hope to get these ideas up here and to refine them over the next three to five years. At a rate of about one a month on this website I hope to post short essays that discuss important ideas of our civilization. At first, each essay will be imperfect -- possibly fatuous and stupid. Then it will slowly improve. Some possible topics: I hope these essays will stimulate discussion. As you can see, I've already worked on some of these ideas. I have two short stories, one a fantasy about a demonic quilt, the other a pseudo sf story about a man who grows wings. These will not appear for a while. I also hope to expand the personal material on this site (now at About Grant) to include the usual photos, resume, and other material of a personal website. Finally, as I keep saying without doing anything about it, I eventually hope to scan in some of the fabric patterns my girlfriend Bee Stuckless has discovered, and show them as art. Home | About Grant
| What's New | Links | Coming Soon | Comments? Send E-Mail
Last updated: 11:58 AM 6/9/2002 |