Leo Tolstoy on Faith

From chapter 9 of A Confession:

"Faith is the force of life. If a man lives, then he must believe in something. If he did not believe that there was something he must live for he would not live. If he does not see and comprehend the illusion of the finite he will believe in the finite. If he does understand the illusion of the finite, he is bound to believe in the infinite. Without faith it is impossible to live."

2024 Reading List

1. Leo Tolstoy - A Confession (literature/religion/philosophy)

2. Keith Lehrer - Theory of Knowledge (philosophy)

3. Thomas Sowell - Black Rednecks and White Liberals (cultural studies/ethnic studies)

4. The Bible (religion, Protestant canon/NRSV translation)

5. Talcott Parsons - "The System of Modern Societies" [reading from James Farganis (editor) - Readings in Social Theory: The Classic Tradition to Post-Modernism] (sociology)

6. Stanley Rosen (editor) - The Examined Life: Readings from Western Philosophers from Plato to Kant (philosophy)

Part One: Social and Political Philosophy

Introduction by Paul Rahe

Plato - Symposium

Plato - Gorgias

Plato - Republic

Aristotle - Politics

Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince

Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The First and Second Discourses

Part Four: Metaphysics

G.W.F. Hegel - Lectures on the History of Philosophy

7. William Dembski - "Reinstating Design Within Science" [reading from Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger (editors) - Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings] (philosophy/science)

8. Robert Nozick - The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations (philosophy)

9. Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Letters and Papers from Prison (prison literature/religion, edited by Eberhard Bethge, translated by Reginald Fuller, Frank Clark, and others)

10. Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Character" (literature/philosophy)

11. Charles E. Moore (editor) - Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard (philosophy/theology)

12. Jerry Z. Muller (editor) - Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present (political science)

I have read the introduction and chapters 1–2. While I went to the effort of writing out the individual excerpts from Rosen's anthology that I read, I have decided not to do that here, so as to not waste time. Perhaps I will share some interesting quotations from this year's readings in future posts. Did anyone notice that there are two books here titled The Examined Life?

Thinking for Oneself

It has long puzzled me how someone might be able to think for themselves without thinking by themselves. Thinking is a product of education. The values that parents transfer to their children, or the information that teachers convey to their students, to give two examples, are social processes. Thinking is social.

Thinking for oneself is not cognitive solitude. What, then, is the path of the critical thinker? Independent thought is found in this: encountering contradictory pieces of information, evaluating it, and attaching oneself to those particular pieces of information that appear most credible—even when that information is at odds with the beliefs of someone (or some people) that the critical thinker has strong relational ties to.

A paradox emerges: thinking is social, yet the pursuit of truth can threaten social cohesion.

There are multiple motivations for holding different beliefs than others. Thinking differently than those around you may be done out of courage. But it may just as well be done out of a superficial arrogance that is self-congratulatory or delights in receiving attention from others.

What makes critical thinking worthwhile? It has already been written that it can threaten social cohesion. Is it wrong if that occurs? Perhaps critical thinking is not valuable in itself. Based on the definition provided in paragraph two, truth is not guaranteed, even though it is aimed at. The critical thinker is interested in what appears most credible, and this would not filter out false judgements entirely.

Critical thinking seems to be important because nobody is infallible. It is the individual pursuit of truth when the social process fails. The social nature of thinking is good, and we do not want to resort to Hobbesian conflict. But when an individual is surrounded by others who possess falsity on a certain point, he is only left with the option of pursuing the truth alone.

Critical thinking might not vouchsafe truth or certainty, but it intends to get as close to correctness as possible.

A Double Dactyl for Taylor Swift

Higgledy piggledy
Taylor Alison Swift
Tortured poets bureau?
How humorous!

Ginsberg and Bukowski
Epiphenomenon
Such offensive jingles
are ruinous!

Metaphysics and Bad Writing

Metaphysics is the syntax of reality. Its propensity to investigate things at the most basic level helps one set unorganized information into order. With the tools necessary to arrange different pieces of data into a coherent picture, metaphysics has practical consequences for producing a unified personality and understanding of the world.

It is a shame, then, that its literature should be encumbered by words like "mereological" and "nomological." While many of an analytic spirit may delight in such technicalities, it is worth remembering that technical language serves a pragmatic purpose, which is to compact large amounts of information. Technical words ought to be the matryoshka dolls of writing, nesting layers of meaning into a single world. But rarely do these words appear as beautiful works of culture. They are ugly and pretentious. Such words look bad in print. They are to manners as a spoonful of cinnamon is to good taste—a pinch will suffice!

There is a world of a difference between efficiency and intellectual self-congratulation, and unfortunately, the use of many technical terms falls into the latter category.