AT THE STOA

When we were younger my sister and I played on this empty lot in front of our house.  Because this is the Philippines, or at least Baguio, "empty lot" translates to an unpaved space less than forty square feet.  You wouldn't call it a "playground," because only people who can afford three pairs of shoes for their children do that, and certainly would not allow their children near that lot.  Even when I was in a private grade school I rarely refer to my school's playground as "playground" - I and my classmates just manage to see each other after dismissal there without problematizing what it's called, and then proceed to systematically destroy our uniforms with the games we play. That empty lot held a lot of promise, especially for children, who will always think dirt is the most awesome thing there is.  I mean, it had everything: the aforementioned awesome dirt, patches of grass in which coins and small things always land and disappear, a vie...

If a day could be called by how much its events resemble the feeling in particular stories, today would be a David Sedaris book.   I spent the entire morning (and a chunk of the afternoon) in bed (or more precisely, on two large square futons amid endlessly reproducing pillows), alternating between reading his book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim  and sleeping.  It's one of those days I get, when even with a full night's sleep of seven or eight hours, I still while away the entire day sleeping.  I didn't have to go to class until 5:30 in the afternoon, so, like anybody who promised to have the most productive day ever, I slept, and produced sweat.  The day passed me by. I had time enough before 5:30 to go to the lecture room when I noticed an LBC package on my table.  It was from my former student, who is now an author of what appears to be a children's book based on his blog .  It wasn't a children's book. It was a good one, though, ir...

         Wittgenstein impressively lays the groundwork for understanding philosophy as grammatical investigation in  Philosophical Investigations [1], by reorienting our understanding of language and thought in terms of language-games and grammar.  Grammar, in Wittgenstein’s sense, inform language-games, which are shared forms of life the rules for which function more like signposts (§199) rather than precepts manifesting a metaphysical, ideal, or neural reality with which our language and thought accords.  This formulation of language-games and grammar, i.e., as both given and shared, problematize the grounds of philosophical disciplines, particularly epistemology and philosophy of language. In so doing, he problematizes one of the dualities which held sway within philosophy for a long time: the ontological duality of the physical and the mental.  This duality corresponds to a further dualism, that of the inner and the outer of the men...

is buying stuff (which, it may be added, we don't need, with money which, it might further be added, we don't really have).  So here is what Pasco bought a couple of days ago: A Wild Beckenbauer suddenly appears!    And here is what I  bought: Snorlax used Sleep! I still maintain that I have the better purchase: I have Snorlax.