Lifting the Weight of Culture

Culture shapes us before we can have our say about it. Learning to lift its weight to make other compositions of time possible is our challenge.

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Reading the Iliad: Mênis and the Moral Compass
Reading the Iliad: Mênis and the Moral Compass

Descending into Achilles passive mēnis in the Iliad leads to a better understanding of the birth of our democratic moral compass.

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Mark 1:15, Metanoeite
Mark 1:15, Metanoeite

Reclaiming ‘metanoia’ as a word badly in need of rejuvenation.

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Rejuvenation
Rejuvenation

Have we lost the power of rejuvenation?

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Reading the Iliad: Wisdom and Violence
Reading the Iliad: Wisdom and Violence

The first of an ongoing re-engagement with the Iliad. Here we have an untimely meditation that holds up the mirror of violence to a culture desparately in need of alternatives to vendettas.

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Reading Zarathustra: The Three Metamorphoses
Reading Zarathustra: The Three Metamorphoses

The three metamorphoses Zarathustra describes in his first speech after the prologue moves us beyond any knee-jerk philosophical and religious musings of ‘being and becoming’. The vision presented here is far more sophisticated.

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Eternal Recurrence

Don’t overcomplicate this concept. As the now keeps rolling, the past accumulates.

Essays on Time as Practice
Reading the Iliad: Mênis and the Moral Compass
Iliad, Ressentiment, moral compass, Nietzsche, Eternal Return, mênis
Reading the Iliad: Mênis and the Moral Compass
Iliad, Ressentiment, moral compass, Nietzsche, Eternal Return, mênis

Descending into Achilles passive mēnis in the Iliad leads to a better understanding of the birth of our democratic moral compass.

Iliad, Ressentiment, moral compass, Nietzsche, Eternal Return, mênis
Reading Zarathustra: The Speeches of Zarathustra
Nietzsche, Zarathustra, Buddhism, Eternal Return, Ressentiment
Reading Zarathustra: The Speeches of Zarathustra
Nietzsche, Zarathustra, Buddhism, Eternal Return, Ressentiment

The second installment of my series of Reading Zarathustra. This focuses on the problem of teaching, discipleship, truth telling, and companionship in ‘The Speeches of Zarathustra’ from Book I.

Nietzsche, Zarathustra, Buddhism, Eternal Return, Ressentiment
Reading Zarathustra: Prologue
Nietzsche, Zarathustra, Christianity, Eternal Return, Ressentiment
Reading Zarathustra: Prologue
Nietzsche, Zarathustra, Christianity, Eternal Return, Ressentiment

The first in a commentary series on Thus Spoke Zarathustra. This post covers Zarathustra’s Prologue.

Nietzsche, Zarathustra, Christianity, Eternal Return, Ressentiment
Time Out of Joint
Philosophy of Time, Physics of Time, Religion and Time, History of Science, Nietzsche, Bergson, Buddhism, Nishitani, Eternal Return
Time Out of Joint
Philosophy of Time, Physics of Time, Religion and Time, History of Science, Nietzsche, Bergson, Buddhism, Nishitani, Eternal Return

How do we compose time?

Philosophy of Time, Physics of Time, Religion and Time, History of Science, Nietzsche, Bergson, Buddhism, Nishitani, Eternal Return
At the Edge of le Grand Récit
Serres, Physics of Time, Philosophy of Time, Eternal Return
At the Edge of le Grand Récit
Serres, Physics of Time, Philosophy of Time, Eternal Return
Serres, Physics of Time, Philosophy of Time, Eternal Return
Zarathustra’s Middle Path
Nietzsche, Heidegger, Dasein, Eternal Return, Ressentiment, Last Man, Nagarjuna, Buddhism, Emptiness, In Between
Zarathustra’s Middle Path
Nietzsche, Heidegger, Dasein, Eternal Return, Ressentiment, Last Man, Nagarjuna, Buddhism, Emptiness, In Between
Nietzsche, Heidegger, Dasein, Eternal Return, Ressentiment, Last Man, Nagarjuna, Buddhism, Emptiness, In Between

A collection of works on the physics, religion, philosophy, and history of how we’ve composed time

Time as Practice Reading List
Myth and Thought among the Greeks - Jean-Pierre Vernant
History of Science, Religion and Time
Myth and Thought among the Greeks - Jean-Pierre Vernant
History of Science, Religion and Time

An exceptionally detailed and compelling investigation into the evolution of Greek philosophical thought out of myth.

History of Science, Religion and Time
Powers of Time - David Lapoujade
Historical Consciousness of Time, Philosophy of Time, Practices of Time
Powers of Time - David Lapoujade
Historical Consciousness of Time, Philosophy of Time, Practices of Time

One of the best explanations of Bergson’s thought. Lapoujade connects duration with motion and in the process exposes why Bergson’s thought is more than conceptual philosophy. It is the transformation of how we experience ourselves and the world.

Historical Consciousness of Time, Philosophy of Time, Practices of Time
The Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul - Stanislas Breton
Religion and Time, Historical Consciousness of Time, Practices of Time
The Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul - Stanislas Breton
Religion and Time, Historical Consciousness of Time, Practices of Time

Breton set in motion the philosophical and theological reconsideration of Paul (which was already underway in more scholarly investigations into ‘the historical Paul’). This book is crucial to the reconsideration of Paul that found in his letters the power to suspend the weight of culture to find ‘new horizons’ of salvational experience.

Religion and Time, Historical Consciousness of Time, Practices of Time
The Natural Contract - Michel Serres
Historical Consciousness of Time, History of Science, Philosophy of Time, Science of Time, Religion and Time
The Natural Contract - Michel Serres
Historical Consciousness of Time, History of Science, Philosophy of Time, Science of Time, Religion and Time

Michel Serres at his most political. This 1990 book is a defining work in the modern understanding of the climate crisis. I've written a long essay inspired by the depth and breadth of Serres vision.

Historical Consciousness of Time, History of Science, Philosophy of Time, Science of Time, Religion and Time

Practices of Time in the New Testament

The Grand Narrative

How to see common things as compositions of time

Featured
The Earth in Time
The Earth in Time

When did the earth begin is a strange question. To trace its answer is to find oneself deeply entangled into the contingency of motions that make up the Grand Narrative of the cosmos.

Words and Things
Words and Things

An excerpt from my essay on Michel Serres’ The Parasite. Words are not things. They are contingencies of motion with a very long history of working out the details.

Vesuvius: Time as Contingency
Vesuvius: Time as Contingency

An essay about thinking time as contingency

Chronology

A running list of posts