Scott & Dave’s High Ontology

This very phenomenological passage from high modernist Virginia Woolf should sssslllllooooowwww you down and get you in the mood:

Mr. Ramsay buttoned his coat, and turned up his trousers. He took the large, badly packed, brown paper parcel which Nancy had got ready and sat with it on his knee. Thus in complete readiness to land he sat looking back at the island. With his long-sighted eyes perhaps he could see the dwindled leaf-life shape standing on end on a plate of gold quite clearly. What could he see? Cam wondered. It was all a blur to her. What was he thinking now? she wondered. What was it he sought, so fixedly, so intently, so silently? They watched him, both of them, sitting bareheaded with his parcel on his knee staring and staring at the pale blue shape which seemed like the vapour of something that had burnt itself away. What do you want? they both wanted to ask. They both wanted to say, Ask us anything and we will give it to you. But he did not ask them anything. He sat and looked at the island and he might be thinking, We perished, each alone, or he might be thinking, I have reached it. I have found it; but he said nothing.

Then he put on his hat.

“Bring those parcels…for the Lighthouse men,” he said. He rose and stood in the bow of the boat, very straight and tall, for all the world, James thought, as if he were saying, “There is no God,” and Cam thought, as if he were leaping into space, and they both rose to follow him as he sprang, lightly like a young man holding his parcel, on to the rock.

[…]

“He must have reached it,” said Lily Briscoe aloud, feeling suddenly completely tired out. For the Lighthouse had become almost invisible, had melted away into a blue haze, and the effort of looking at it and the effort of thinking of his landing there, which both seemed to be one and the same effort, had stretched her body and mind to the utmost. Ah, but she was relieved. Whatever she had wanted to give him, when he left her that morning, she had given him at last.

“He has landed,” she said aloud. “It is finished.” Then surging up, puffing slightly, old Mr. Carmichael stood besides her, looking like an old pagan god, shaggy, with weeds in his hari and the trident (it was only a French novel) in his hand. He stood by her on the edge of the lawn, swaying a little in his bulk and she said, shading his eyes with his hand: “They will have landed,” and she felt that she had been right. They had not needed to speak. They had been thinking the same things and he had answered her without her asking him anything. He stood there as if he were spreading his hands over all the weakness and suffering of mankind; she thought he was surveying, tolerantly and compassionately, their final destiny. Now he has crowned the occasion, she thought, when his hand slowly fell, as if she had seen him let fall from his great height a wreath of violets and asphodels which, fluttering slowly, lay at length upon the earth.

Quickly, as if she were recalled by something over there, she turned to her canvas. There it was—her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. IIt would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.

Welcome to Part II

I, too, have had my vision, which I aim to share with you in this sequel to “Action, Plurality, Judgment Parts 1 and 2” (which I intend to retroactively rename). Your prep (tho optional as always, but I think you’ll really like it) is …

Our lovely family gatherings with Thelma have now concluded. The prospect of leaving her warm yellow room behind fills me with dread; I suspect many of you feel the same way. We are fledgling birds leaving the nest—and, as such birds do, flailing not only outward but downward.

What better way to steel ourselves for the coming year’s horrors than by increasing our powers of confrontation? Trump and his self-benefiting cronies have turned otherizing schadenfreude into the feel-good drug of the decade. What philosophical topic could possibly help us train as warriors for the light side of the Force in such a crucial, absurdly evil-celebrating time?

I sought counsel from my friends Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Steven Taubeneck, and they offered three stark injunctions:

1. Don’t slack off now. Stay strong.
2. Don’t escape into opioid entertainments. If you want to recharge, do it by immersing yourself in the pain of rigor and clarity about ultimate concerns. Feel deeply—but keep the critical-intelligence lights on.
3. Where possible, shift from Thelma’s panoramic history of Western philosophy to a cohort of Otherness Specialists—researchers who placed otherness at the center of their philosophical work.

Hearing these admonitions set the standard alchemical Great Work process in motion. Recognizing the immensity of the task induced the Nigredo. Digesting it and discovering the common hub brought on the Albedo. Now, as I write, I find myself entering Citrinitas.

In the coming weeks, if fortune smiles, I will reach the Rubedo—together with all of you.

Behold our interim four-part miniseries:

Jewish Thinkers of Otherness: Buber – Arendt – Levinas – Derrida

This series will examine four distinct ways whereby the Other becomes a decisive philosophical event: as presence, as plurality, as ethical asymmetry, and as structural difference.

Each session focuses on one thinker and one conceptual pathway, presented by a brave member of our community—currently experiencing performance anxiety about presenting to a group of critical Others. But they have no need to worry, because Jedi Master Professor Steven Taubeneck will be on hand to answer the hard hard questions and prevent us from cheating, lying, fabricating, speculating, and bluffing.

This generic placeholder description will be updated once our courageous presenters send in their outlines. For now, mark your calendars, join the discussion, and prepare for a series that explores how twentieth-century thought reconceived relation, responsibility, and alterity at the deepest and most disquieting levels.

METHOD

TBA

Summaries, notes, event chatlogs, episode transcripts, timelines, tables, observations, and downloadable PDFs of the episodes we cover can be found here:

Our lovely family gatherings with Thelma have now concluded. The prospect of leaving her warm yellow room behind fills me with dread; I suspect many of you feel the same way. We are fledgling birds leaving the nest—and, as such birds do, flailing not only outward but downward.

What better way to steel ourselves for the coming year’s horrors than by increasing our powers of confrontation? Trump and his self-benefiting cronies have turned otherizing schadenfreude into the feel-good drug of the decade. What philosophical topic could possibly help us train as warriors for the light side of the Force in such a crucial, absurdly evil-celebrating time?

I sought counsel from my friends Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Steven Taubeneck, and they offered three stark injunctions:

1. Don’t slack off now. Stay strong.
2. Don’t escape into opioid entertainments. If you want to recharge, do it by immersing yourself in the pain of rigor and clarity about ultimate concerns. Feel deeply—but keep the critical-intelligence lights on.
3. Where possible, shift from Thelma’s panoramic history of Western philosophy to a cohort of Otherness Specialists—researchers who placed otherness at the center of their philosophical work.

Hearing these admonitions set the standard alchemical Great Work process in motion. Recognizing the immensity of the task induced the Nigredo. Digesting it and discovering the common hub brought on the Albedo. Now, as I write, I find myself entering Citrinitas.

In the coming weeks, if fortune smiles, I will reach the Rubedo—together with all of you.

Behold our interim four-part miniseries:

Jewish Thinkers of Otherness: Buber – Arendt – Levinas – Derrida

This series will examine four distinct ways whereby the Other becomes a decisive philosophical event: as presence, as plurality, as ethical asymmetry, and as structural difference.

Each session focuses on one thinker and one conceptual pathway, presented by a brave member of our community—currently experiencing performance anxiety about presenting to a group of critical Others. But they have no need to worry, because Jedi Master Professor Steven Taubeneck will be on hand to answer the hard hard questions and prevent us from cheating, lying, fabricating, speculating, and bluffing.

This generic placeholder description will be updated once our courageous presenters send in their outlines. For now, mark your calendars, join the discussion, and prepare for a series that explores how twentieth-century thought reconceived relation, responsibility, and alterity at the deepest and most disquieting levels.

METHOD

TBA

Summaries, notes, event chatlogs, episode transcripts, timelines, tables, observations, and downloadable PDFs of the episodes we cover can be found here:

Our lovely family gatherings with Thelma have now concluded. The prospect of leaving her warm yellow room behind fills me with dread; I suspect many of you feel the same way. We are fledgling birds leaving the nest—and, as such birds do, flailing not only outward but downward.

What better way to steel ourselves for the coming year’s horrors than by increasing our powers of confrontation? Trump and his self-benefiting cronies have turned otherizing schadenfreude into the feel-good drug of the decade. What philosophical topic could possibly help us train as warriors for the light side of the Force in such a crucial, absurdly evil-celebrating time?

I sought counsel from my friends Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Steven Taubeneck, and they offered three stark injunctions:

1. Don’t slack off now. Stay strong.
2. Don’t escape into opioid entertainments. If you want to recharge, do it by immersing yourself in the pain of rigor and clarity about ultimate concerns. Feel deeply—but keep the critical-intelligence lights on.
3. Where possible, shift from Thelma’s panoramic history of Western philosophy to a cohort of Otherness Specialists—researchers who placed otherness at the center of their philosophical work.

Hearing these admonitions set the standard alchemical Great Work process in motion. Recognizing the immensity of the task induced the Nigredo. Digesting it and discovering the common hub brought on the Albedo. Now, as I write, I find myself entering Citrinitas.

In the coming weeks, if fortune smiles, I will reach the Rubedo—together with all of you.

Behold our interim four-part miniseries:

Jewish Thinkers of Otherness: Buber – Arendt – Levinas – Derrida

This series will examine four distinct ways whereby the Other becomes a decisive philosophical event: as presence, as plurality, as ethical asymmetry, and as structural difference.

Each session focuses on one thinker and one conceptual pathway, presented by a brave member of our community—currently experiencing performance anxiety about presenting to a group of critical Others. But they have no need to worry, because Jedi Master Professor Steven Taubeneck will be on hand to answer the hard hard questions and prevent us from cheating, lying, fabricating, speculating, and bluffing.

This generic placeholder description will be updated once our courageous presenters send in their outlines. For now, mark your calendars, join the discussion, and prepare for a series that explores how twentieth-century thought reconceived relation, responsibility, and alterity at the deepest and most disquieting levels.

METHOD

TBA

Summaries, notes, event chatlogs, episode transcripts, timelines, tables, observations, and downloadable PDFs of the episodes we cover can be found here: