America’s Puritan Heritage (and a plug for The Wordy Shipmates)
It was like providence. Or Providence. Pun intended. Less than a week ago, during the time when I was feverishly preparing myself to begin my American Philosophy course, I just happened to be browsing in the world’s best bookstore, Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon, when I caught sight of this winsome little book. [...]
American Philosophy (and a plug for The Metaphysical Club)
For the next sixteen weeks every post I make in this blog will be related to my American Philosophy course (PHI 216). I am a neophyte in this field, but it combines two of my intellectual avocations: philosophy and American history. A few years ago a friend of mine encouraged me to read Louis Menand’s [...]
Dr. Bloodmoney by Philip K. Dick (1965)
Philip K. Dick’s amazing novel Dr. Bloodmoney rewards the reader with a new share in Dick’s visionary insanity.
Mysterium by Robert Charles Wilson (1994)
I was disappointed by Mysterium. How can an author mess up a stew of gnosticism, quantum cosmology, political and religious satire, and good old fashioned nuclear annihilation? By substituting an empty placeholder (“mystery”) for a substantive insight or theoria, that’s how.
After Life in Roman Paganism (Cumont, 1922)
A few days ago I finished reading After Life in Roman Paganism by legendary French historian of religion Franz Cumont. The book publishes lectures originally delivered in English at Yale University in 1921. My copy, a Dover Publications paperback edition from 1959, originally cost $1.35, was designed to last for a long time in a [...]