[MD] Myron's post

[John Carl]

Philosophy is, at least a sort of club that, when you join, you hear things
from others that awaken your own heart.  I met a fellow member of the club,
Myron Jackson, whom I hosted while he was attending the Royce conference,
back in his days as a grad student from Carbondale .  We're FB friends now,
and he posts some really good stuff, often.  The following nugget from A.N.
Whitehead, an example:

"Philosophy is not a mere collection of noble sentiments. A deluge of such
sentiments does more harm than good.
Philosophy is at once general and concrete. critical and appreciative of
direct intuition.
It is not- or at least should not be - a ferocious debate between irritable
professors.

It is a survey of possibilities and their comparison with actualities.
In philosophy, the fact. the theory. the alternatives. and the ideal. are
weighed together.
Its gifts are insight and foresight and a sense of the worth of life.

in short. that sense of importance which nerves all civilized effort.
Mankind can flourish in the lower stages of life with merely barbaric
flashes of thought. But when civilization culminates.
the absence of a coordinating philosophy of life, spread throughout the
community,  spells decadence, boredom, and the slackening of effort"
(Adventures of Ideas, 1933, p. 98)


decadence, boredom and the slackening of effort.  Yeah, there's a lot of
that going around, eh comrades?

Speaking personally, at least,

John