In response to David Zimmerman's request for the name of my cat, I blush to admit that my wife and I have never gotten around to giving her one. She is known to us simply as "Kitty" which is of course no name at all for a self-respecting cat. My stuffed teddy bear has a name, as I believe I have mentioned in this space, and the two cats we had for many years in Massachusetts and then North Carolina both had names: the male was named Murray after the dog in one of our favorite television shows and the female was named Christmas Eve because that is when we got her. I will say, however, that although she has no name our kitty has learned to come when I call her so long as I am looking at her when I issue the command. I gather from cat lovers that this is extraordinary and I put it down to my dynamic personality, hem hem.
Chris suggests that she is not really interested in my books for their merits but is in fact playing on my vanity. Alas, he may be correct. I am naïve and unsuspecting when it comes to pets, for all that I am preternaturally suspicious when it is a matter of politics or national security. Still and all, like most authors I am grateful for the attention, whatever its motivation. However, I shall not allow her to read these comments for fear that it might put ideas in her mind.
On another matter entirely unrelated to the important issue of my cat, I note that Louis Gohmert has contracted the coronavirus. I believe it is incumbent upon me to say that I hope he recovers, but I am pleased that my readers cannot observe my body language as I utter these conventional sentiments.
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A Commentary on the Passing Scene by Robert Paul Wolff rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
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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Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.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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About Me
- Robert Paul Wolff
- As I observed in one of my books, in politics I am an anarchist, in religion I am an atheist, and in economics I am a Marxist. I am also, rather more importantly, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a violist.
11 comments:
My apologies......
for ever supposing that "Anent my cat" does not have a proper name.
Is it possible to pet the same cat twice?
Haha! Loving the cat humor on today's blog.
I was drawing a blank earlier as to any interesting tidbits regarding both cats and philosophy. But here's what I managed to come up with, courtesy of the Stanford Encyclopedia:
"Unlike F.H. Bradley, whose feline-directed nocturnal activities were not so benign, McTaggart saluted cats whenever he met them. (F.H. Bradley preferred to shoot cats; see the entry on F. H. Bradley.)"
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mctaggart/#BioSkeMcT
(The McTaggart in question is John, full name John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart, known today mainly for his "Unreality of Time" essay. He sounds like quite a character! Bradley, on the other hand...)
https://youtu.be/2CD6lVk-ia8
Stage five: Let a well-read cat come up with a new plan
curiosity killed the cat...which is why it needs nine lives and an owner to entertain
Our cat heard Mitt Romney say "Corporations are people too my friend" so she asked us to sign her up as a corporation. Now our "corporate cat" wants to vote so we suggested she get some cohorts to sign up for her march on Washington. We are sperately are looking for a cats herder. Any suggestion? She's a tuxedo cat so can she handle the color problem? We don't know how she will take to orange tabbies and the like. HELP
Because I am (alas) teaching from home this term, my cat Chubias Kotavich Dyachuk, has got to "star" in some of my lessons. On the few occasions when my bandwidth is good enough to support video (the internet in Australia is really bad, and mine, in particular, is bad - worse than I had in the US 15 years ago, for sure) he likes me to hold and pet him while I lecture, so he can be on screen. But, last week, when the video was no good, he thought that instead he'd try to bit me while I lectured, and then cried sadly when I tried to get him to stop. (He displays his conscience this way - he knows he's going to do something wrong, and so lets out a mournful cry before going ahead and doing it.) The students did seem to find it amusing that I had to fight off a cat who was trying to bite be during the lectures. (He is an old cat - about 15 - and is missing many teeth now, so his occasional biting habit isn't as dangerous as it once was, but it is still distracting during lecture. I should add that he is, in general, extremely sweet and kind, despite the fact that he does sometimes attack.)
Okay Matt, I have to ask. Where did your cat get his name? One of the charms of the current crisis is the opportunity one gets to see the inside of the homes of the people one is accustomed to seeing simply on television. John Heilman, whose comments I enjoy, has two Great Danes who on occasion nuzzle him while he is offering observations on the political scene. It warms my heart.
Our cat's name is pretty funny. He's a Russian cat - my wife got him as a kitten to try to cheer up her mother who was (alas) dying of cancer at the time. He did cheer her up, but couldn't do more than that. The people she got him from - some acquaintances, called him "Chubias" after the Russian politician/criminal Anatoly Chubais (I slightly messed up the latinization of the name, but stick with it, as it seems closer to the pronunciation to me.) The politician/criminal was famous for his large shock of red hair. Our cat is a red cat, and a lot of Russians find it strangely hilarious to name animals after people they don't like, so lots of red cats in Russia end up named "Chubias." My wife actually dislikes the name and doesn't call him that much, but does call him "Choop choop", as a sort of cute version. "Kotavich" is his assumed patronymic name, as "Kot" is Russian for a male cat, so this would be "son of Cat". All good Russians have a patronymic name, so I thought it was fair to give him one. "Dyachuk" is my wife's last name. On his official travel documents he got when he came to the US it listed him with her last name, so we say that's the official one, even though the vets here usually give him my last name, since I'm the one who takes him to the vet.
He's a well-traveled cat, having moved to the US from Russia at about one year old, lived in Philadelphia on three different occasions, in New York City for two years, Denver Colorado for a year year, and now in Australia for the last three years.
Matt, you put me to shame. I stand in awe of your cat's name and am humbled by my inability to find anything for my cat more suitable than Kitty. I suppose I could make a go at calling her Kitovna, but I'm afraid she would look at me askance as if to say, "aren't you getting a bit above yourself?"
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