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https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rwolff_umass_edu/EkxJV79tnlBDol82i7bXs7gBAUHadkylrmLgWbXv2nYq_A?e=UcbbW0

Coming Soon:

The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





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Tuesday, September 6, 2016

VANITAS VANITAS OMNIA VANITAS

How right M. de St. Colombe was to flee the enticements of the court at Versailles and isolate himself on his country estate, there to spend endless hours perfecting his mastery of the viola da gamba.  

At last count, there had been 7,132 views of my first Kant lecture. Already I am asking myself, "What can I do to keep them coming back?"  My fantasies run to an international tour, with a back-up quartet of modal logicians and power amps.  We could call ourselves The Noumenal Five.  

I was wise all those years ago to leave the Ivy League.  I suppose this is Andy Warhol's revenge.


3 comments:

s. wallerstein said...

Even if it is only your fifteen minutes of fame, enjoy it.

I think there is a wise middle course between letting one's ego swell because one believes oneself a super star and bemoaning that all is vanity when one gets a bit of rightful attention due to one's merits. Better Aristotle than Warhol or Ecclesiastes.

Robert Paul Wolff said...

That is wise advice, but as I am sure you realized, my post was intended as a bit of ironic self-deprecatory humor.

s. wallerstein said...

I understand that you operate with level upon level of irony, that you're ironic about being ironic about being ironic, but behind irony there is generally, if not always, something going on in the conscious or unconscious mind of the ironist.

Having grown in a home where irony was generally the only form of communication, I try to psyche out irony. Sometimes I sense what is going on, sometimes I don't.