Archives for January 2023

"First, it should be noted that the death instinct was not introduced to account for the factor of destructiveness, as the later papers on culture and especially 'Civilization and Its Discontents' might lead us to believe, but to account for a set of facts which center around the compulsion to repeat." Paul Ricoeur (Freud & Philosophy) "The unseen suffers precisely from its continued nonappearance in any form and desires only access to a mode of appearance." Jean-Luc Marion (The Visible and the Revealed) "In one sense, the expropriation of experience was implicit in the founding project of modern science." Giorgio Agamben (Infancy and History) "This is why, in the paragraph on … [Read more...]

"In order to further explain and/or defend our description, we in turn develop a story about what we believe is true. There is nothing wrong with storytelling. In fact, it is a very effective way of transferring ideas. If you stop and think, the way we communicate with each other is basically through a series of stories. Stories are open-ended and metaphorical rather than determinate." Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus) “Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, / Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams / And our desires.” Wallace Stevens (Sunday Morning) "European civilization is approaching the term of its existence..." Erich Auerbach (postscript to Mimesis) "There is no … [Read more...]