Tuesday, October 1, 2013

The Consolations of Philosophy: A New Series of Posts

Now, I am a realist and not a pie-in-the-sky romantic.  This is a result of my own personal experience as well as personality.  The Classical world generally was a world of realism.  The great philosophical schools of Epicureanism, Stoicism, Platonism and Aristotelianism each tried to deal with the great question of human happiness:  what was it?  of what did it consist? 
However, even human happiness was/is a fleeting thing, at best.  Yes, boys and girls, you have to put on your adult underwear and learn to carry on with gaping wounds as well as the smaller scratches which will never heal.  And they WILL not. Most all POP Psychology self-help is a crock as is vicarious atonement.  Philosophy is not navel-gazing.

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