tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post953879702867862148..comments2024-03-28T01:17:42.336-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: YOU STILL DON'T GET ITRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-18836638878811278092020-09-15T02:36:26.175-04:002020-09-15T02:36:26.175-04:00'Now if you can take a deep breath and get pas...'Now if you can take a deep breath and get past whatever personal hangups you may have, it will be obvious to you that in my view Trump’s use of the word “strenuous” is not in any ordinary sense a misuse of language that has anything at all to do with whether one was or was not at some point long in the past an Ivy League professor with or without radical views.'<br /><br />Hooray, for what is obvious to me.Dannyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11915977609430813824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-2821011347445265732020-09-15T02:34:57.118-04:002020-09-15T02:34:57.118-04:00I might have supposed that it was the Trumps, who ...I might have supposed that it was the Trumps, who were tiresome and conceited bores, in the constant measure of status and snobbery. The Trumps and their incessant competetiveness and egomania.Dannyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11915977609430813824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-62380553502178631572020-09-12T15:15:38.410-04:002020-09-12T15:15:38.410-04:00Michael, hey, I'm a fan of Schopenhauer's ...Michael, hey, I'm a fan of Schopenhauer's too, though his preference for poodles over cats is suspicious. Try a good dose of early English analytical philosophy if you want to get your prose right. Start with A.J. Ayer's, "Language, truth, and logic"---nevermind (for now) the philosophy.jeffrey g kessennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-59118610825061042212020-09-12T14:01:19.808-04:002020-09-12T14:01:19.808-04:00"I try very hard in these posts and elsewhere..."I try very hard in these posts and elsewhere in my writing not to make points in a flat-footed, clunky, prosaic manner. I try – I leave it to others to decide whether I succeed – to write with a certain quickness of wit and lightness of touch, relying on my readers to grasp my meaning rather than trying to cram it down their throats."<br /><br />Well, in my opinion, you very much succeed. :)<br /><br />This phrase - "relying on my readers to grasp my meaning rather than trying to cram it down their throats" - struck a chord with me. I'm afraid you've hit on one of the principles of good writing that I struggle terribly with. Philosophers can be a bad influence in this way - it's as if they teach the aspiring writer to guard against every conceivable misinterpretation, no matter how far-fetched, and in the process to burden the reader with a heap of footnotes, parentheses, qualifications within qualifications... You get the picture. (And I'm already illustrating the very difficulty I speak of!)<br /><br />Schopenhauer puts the point well, somewhere, in one of his many barbs against German philosophy. I'm a little too pressed for time to search out the exact one I have in mind. But pretty much everything Schopenhauer says about writing is very, uh...good. Check him out:<br /><br />https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/20/schopenhauer-on-style/Michaelnoreply@blogger.com