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Tag Archives: Marilynne Robinson
The Growth Illusion
Although I have gone to some effort to try and get folks to address the wider picture of the Levitt & Dubner attack on efforts to curb carbon emissions, I have only just received the first comment on it or any of the follow-up posts. Thanks to NelC for engaging–it is supposed to be the [...]
Posted in topical Also tagged climate change, conservatism, Enlightenment, ethics, global warming, liberalism, Michael Sandel, modernity, philosophy, rationalism, religion, Romanticism, Rousseau, Rowan Williams, secularism, virtue ethics 2 Comments
Freakonomics and The Dismal Science
Cute-o-nomics
The maps of real knowledge, designed for real life, showed nothing except things which allegedly could be proved to exist. The first principle of the philosophical mapmakers seemed to be “If in doubt, leave it out,” or put it into a museum. It occurred to me, however, that the question of [...]
Posted in topical Also tagged altruism, E F Schumacher, economics, egoism, ethics, philosophy, psychological egoism 2 Comments
Greed is Good
Following on my ethics of finance theme, the Goldman Sachs profits and the Lloyds bid to get out of the UK toxic asset insurance scheme there has been much discussion of just what is going on.
This side of the pond first. In response to the Lloyds move, Simon Jenkins wrote a blistering piece in the [...]
Posted in topical Also tagged banking, Darwinism, economics, ethics, financial crisis, greed, selfishness Leave a comment
Marilynne Robinson on Family
Carrying on a series posts in which I snatch random fragments, magpie style, from Marilynne Robinson’s enchanting Death of Adam Essays I offer a couple of fragments from the Family essay.
For some time we seem to have been launched on a great campaign to deromanticize everything, even while we are eager to insist that more [...]
Marilynne Robinson on Facing Reality
Further to my last post, I read another of Marilynne Robinson’s essays from The Death of Adam today, Facing Reality. The shock of reading these essays is not easy to catch. The total inadequacy of my own writing, and indeed the gulf between this and other contemporary non-fiction prose is shocking. I have read [...]
Posted in classics Also tagged ethics, irrationalism, modernity, philosophy, physicalism Leave a comment
Meditation: Robinson on Civilization (iii)
This is the final post in an experimental series in which I present successive paragraphs of an extract from Marilynne Robinson’s introduction to her Death of Adam essays. Here I make up the extract with the third and final paragraph, with the whole extract presented.
Posted in classics Also tagged atheism, civilisation, Darwinism, economics, ethics, evolution, modernity, neo-Darwinism, philosophy, secularism Leave a comment
Meditation: Marilynne Robinson on Civilization (ii)
Following on from yesterday’s post, the first in an experimental series in which I present successive paragraphs of an extract from Marilynne Robinson’s introduction to her Death of Adam essays, here is the second paragraph. I am accumulating the three paragraph extract so today’s post starts with paragraph I posted yesterday.
Posted in classics Also tagged atheism, civilisation, Darwinism, economics, ethics, evolution, modernity, neo-Darwinism, philosophy, secularism Leave a comment
Meditation: Marilynne Robinson on Civilization (i)
I have been rereading some of Marilynne Robinson’s essays from The Death of Adam. It is difficult to do justice to them and I won’t try, but I would like to quote three paragraphs from her introduction. Knowing how I read on line, I am going to do this over three days. Her prose [...]
Posted in classics Also tagged atheism, civilisation, Darwinism, economics, ethics, evolution, modernity, neo-Darwinism, philosophy, secularism Leave a comment
Marilynne Robinson
Having reminded myself in the previous post of one of our greatest living intellectuals, John Gray, I have at the same time been reintroducing to another, Marilynne Robinson. Her essays in The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought are, for me, quite simply the best I have read, and I will be using one [...]
Kantian Deontology