Category: being

• Mardi gras

  Feb 21

  I learned the language of angels in a religious experience on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras 1987. One night I had decided to walk among the heathen so that my… more ›

• Reading Heidegger

  Jun 8

  You won’t have read Heidegger until you’ve (also) read Being and Time. There are two routes toward reading B/T: 1) just read the damn thing, or 2) ease into reading… more ›

• Lucky’s Speech

  Mar 27

  It was years—decades even—from the time I first read Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot before seeing a production of it. In that time, and really since the beginning, I was fascinated with… more ›

• Sacrament

  Nov 14

  “Światu grożą trzy plagi, trzy zarazy. Pierwsza–to plaga nacjonalizmu. Druga–to plaga rasizmu. Trzecia–to plaga religijnego fundamentalizmu. Te trzy plagi mają samą cechę, wspólny mianownik–jest nim agresywna, wszechwładna, totalna irracjonalność. Do… more ›

• Toward a General Hermeneutics

  May 22

  In the early nineteenth century Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher rejected the specialized hermeneutics of medieval philosophy (that is, theological, juridical, and literary hermeneutics) and in their place proposed a general… more ›

• An-Original Translation

  Apr 17

  Imagine being a historian of nineteenth-century Paris and your academic publisher demanding to see the original city before accepting your manuscript. What kind of original would you provide? A map… more ›

• Chatter

  Jan 9

  There’s a voice continually narrating in my mind. At no point is it louder than when I’m still, attempting to meditate. Sometimes I have to turn that voice against itself… more ›

• As This Openness

  Aug 24

  The great Czechoslovakian philosopher Jan Patočka writes in his First Essay of the Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, “Humans in their inmost being are nothing other than this ‘openness’… more ›

• Gaza

  Jul 25

  No, we do not have to accept the status quo. We do not have to accept the fact that our nation unqualifiedly supports Israel. We can hold our representatives accountable.… more ›

• On the Prosthetic

  Jan 10

  After spending a few hours this past week trying on new frames and ordering new lenses for distance vision, now seems like a suitable time to think and write about… more ›