We find today everywhere examples of mass produced luxury. Sitting in a coffee house atop dark wood chairs, next to a floor to ceiling fireplace adorned with an exotic artwork, I am both everywhere and nowhere. Starbucks, or Second-Cup, even the new-look Macdonalds embrace an architecture of bare wood, rock and leather wingback chairs alongside [...]
Archive for the ‘Body Phenomenology’ Category
“Chic-ness” and Cheapness – the materiality of the modern aesthetic
Posted in Body Phenomenology, Capitalism, Ethics, Food, Pragmatics, Pubs, Technology, Things, coffee, writing on November 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Summer Ponderings, Existential Crisis, Meaning and Purpose
Posted in Being, Body Phenomenology, Capitalism, Ethics, God, Philosophy, Pragmatics, Technology, Things, beginning, global warming on August 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“Back in touch”
This summer I have not spent much time reading and writing. In other words, I have not done much philosophy. I’ve found myself wondering, “What is the point of philosophy?”, “What is philosophy for?”. Of course, easy and bad answers to these questions exist. The usual solution is to posit some principle which [...]
Form inside matter
Posted in Art, Being, Body Phenomenology, Capitalism, Ethics, beginning on June 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The AGO currently has an exhibit in its Italian gallery of beams of wood carved away to reveal the heartwood. Literally starting with a building material, the artist is able to reveal the tree inside it – in other words, in something whose form has been neutralized, made identical (one beam is the same as [...]
Serra’s Shift
Posted in Being, Body Phenomenology, Capitalism, Ethics, Philosophy, Photography, Picturesque, Pragmatics, Technology, Things, beginning, global warming on June 29, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Yesterday morning my father, myself, and a few roomates and friends piled into my new one dollar van to drive north of Toronto to see Richard Serra’s early site-specific work, “Shift”. Although I first heard about the piece four years ago in a course on late Heidegger, a lack of private transportation meant this was [...]
On Eating Alone, or Engagement and the Social Valuation of Food Consumption
Posted in Body Phenomenology, Capitalism, Pragmatics, Things on June 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I noticed after returning from Montreal that I was finding eating much less enjoyable than I did while I was there. Trying to find a reason for this, I went over several possibilities. One is that in Montreal I was free to purchase dairy products to consume at home – I certainly do value soft [...]
A Walking Artist
Posted in Art, Being, Body Phenomenology, Ethics, Philosophy, Pragmatics on February 14, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Whilst walking down Dundas street last sunday, I happened across a small gallery. Inside, I found a small collection of squigly drawings. They were, in fact, drawings which had been penned by a person walking through the city, along the streets.
This was interesting for several reasons. First, they drawings are not strictly representational reproductions of [...]
Polytelism and cultural objects
Posted in Body Phenomenology, Capitalism, Ethics, Philosophy, Pragmatics, Technology on November 26, 2008 | 5 Comments »
A month or so ago I saw an academic talk with the inciendiary title, “Aristotle’s Worst Idea”. It concerned the notion of “monotelism” in Aristotle, a word the speaker had coined to express Aristotle’s judgement that things which had a single purpose are superior to those with many purposes. This principle, that a thing out [...]
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig)
Posted in Art, Body Phenomenology, Ethics, Philosophy, Pragmatics, Technology, writing on November 14, 2008 | 1 Comment »
On one level, Zen is a book about a motorcycle journey taken by John and his son Chris from Chicago to San Fransisco. On another, it’s a treatise about how mechanics ought be practiced. On another it’s a recollection of John’s previous life before a nervous breakdown, when he pursued the ghost of reason, and [...]
Mathias and Kiersten’s wedding
Posted in Art, Body Phenomenology, Ethics, Philosophy, Pragmatics, beginning, writing on July 2, 2008 | 2 Comments »
This morning I arrived from M and K’s wedding in Portland, Oregon, followed by a 3 day honeymoon party at the Cheesecake cabin near Trout Lake, Washington. I plan to write a thorough description of these events, as they are important not only for my own personal development as a human being, but also for [...]
Questions for Life
Posted in Body Phenomenology, Philosophy, beginning, writing on June 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A) What are we doing when we retrieve Ancient Philosophy?
B) How does the answer to A differ from what we are doing when we use common sense, everyday ready-made notions?
Provisional answer: A and B are seperated by the possesing/lacking of what we call awareness, having-one’s self, authenticity, consciousness, intentionality.
2) Freedom is the retrieve which is [...]
