Author Archives: Andy

Of Platonic Prose

Posted on August 26, 2012

From David K. O’Connor’s introduction to the Shelley translation of Plato’s Symposium:   Plato’s style is natural without being plain. He avoided the rhetorical artifice that embellished mush of the prose of his day, though he could produce fine specimens of … Continue reading →

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Anthony Kerrigan on Borges

Posted on July 30, 2012

While rummaging through used bookshops in Colorado this weekend I picked up a copy of Jorge Luis Borges’s Ficciones. I confess I had not read Borges before, but I remembered an allusion to his work in Foucault’s The Order of … Continue reading →

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Hemingway to Scribner

Posted on July 23, 2012

Charlie there is no future in anything. I hope you agree. That is why I like it at war. Every day and every night there is a strong possibility that you will get killed and not have to write. I … Continue reading →

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The ‘Unpalatable Propositions’ of McCabe’s Aquinas.

Posted on July 5, 2012

From Terry Eagleton’s introduction to Herbert McCabe’s God and Evil: In the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. As for evil, the other term in the book’s title, Herbert argues that there cannot be anything evil which is not also in some … Continue reading →

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Don’t Try This In A Bar…

Posted on June 26, 2012

A friend of mine emailed this to me. I figured you might get as many laughs from it as I have. Dear Paris Review, What Books Impress a Girl?.

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“A Place to Stop And Work”

Posted on June 25, 2012

Early in Stanley Cavell’s “The Availability of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy” the following line sits curled up, hissing angrily, waiting to strike: “Criticism is always an affront, and its only justification lies in usefulness, in making its object available to just … Continue reading →

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A (Belated) Birthday

Posted on June 23, 2012

It has been far too long since I posted here. It’s time to start again. I posted this on Auburn’s Philosophy Facebook earlier, but I thought it might do well on here considering the interests of some of those who … Continue reading →

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From David Foster Wallace

Posted on January 31, 2012

Early on in Infinite Jest: Were he now still among the living, Dr. Incandenza would now describe tennis in the paradoxical terms of what’s now called ‘Extra-Linear Dynamics.’ And Schtitt, whose knowledge of formal math is probably about equivalent to … Continue reading →

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A Friendly Musical Suggestion

Posted on January 27, 2012

Here’s a favorite from Josh Ritter‘s second album, Animal Years:

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Recreating Ourselves to Death

Posted on January 24, 2012

In his brilliant Amusing Ourselves To Death Neil Postman argued that the form in which an idea is conveyed is not irrelevant to its truth evaluation. In fact, Postman said, the medium in which communication takes place is itself not … Continue reading →

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