On Saturday, April 28, 2007, in anxious anticipation of a
retirement planned for the following year, and casting about for something,
anything, to fill the empty days and weeks after I became Professor Emeritus, I established The Philosopher's Stone, and put up my very first post. The suggestion to run a blog had come from my
son, Patrick, and though I scarcely knew what a blog was [a "web
log," I deduced], I thought I had better give it a shot.
In the next few months, I posted another eighteen little
comments and observations, but then I let the project lapse as I wrapped up a
half-century of teaching and undertook the task of selling a house in the midst
of a real estate crash and moving Susie and our two cats, Murray and Christmas
Eve, to a condominium apartment in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
I did not return to blogging until June of 2009. Since then, I have written almost two
thousand four hundred additional posts, not counting a book length series of
posts devoted to Formal Methods in
Political Philosophy on a second, separate blog. I have written, day by day, an eight hundred
page three volume autobiography, an entire volume of multi-part tutorials,
mini-tutorials, and appreciations, and observations on everything from the
passing political scene to literary criticism.
All in all, in the past six years, I have written well over half a
million words.
All of which I offer in explanation [and perhaps expiation]
of the fact that I have decided to take a brief holiday from blogging. This Thursday, Susie and shall once again fly
off to Paris, returning on November 15th.
For more than three weeks, I
shall not blog. The universe will
have to get along without me for twenty-five days.
Will any of you still be here when I return? I most earnestly hope so. It has been, these past six years, a great
pleasure, indeed a delight, to read your responses to the notes I have sealed
in bottles and cast into the digital sea.
I have no doubt that I shall return filled to the brim with
observations, animadversions, interpretations, predictions, ruminations, and
meditations.
In all probability, I shall post one last comment tomorrow,
but then there will be what we called, when I was a boy, radio silence.
Behave yourselves while I am gone.
8 comments:
Happy radio silence, Professor! But be sure to come back! Cheers, trane
I will, I will!
L'autre boulange, in the 11e.
Have fun, and safe travels. I'll admit that I wish I were off to a few weeks in your place in Paris, too!
Bon voyage!
Yes, we'll be watching for the new posts when you return!
Though an infrequent commenter, I do hope my few have conveyed that as long as you're writing, I shall continue reading! And I hope you and Susie have a lovely holiday in Paris!
Hi Bob,
If I can hold your ear a moment longer...It seems to me--on one hand--Kant insists one must do what is right regardless of statutes the State may enact. But--on the other hand that States can have "perpetual peace" if they would just submit to a League of Nations as individuals submit to the authority of their States.
Is this inconsistent? Or is the individual the only meaningful moral unit, and States can bind themselves to another authority in a way that the individual cannot?
Enjoy Paris!
Barry
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