220808: from the perspective of cis half-whiteman, this is an excellent introductoif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
220808: from the perspective of cis half-whiteman, this is an excellent introductory text on current philosophy of feminism. direct, concise, accessible, this does not ask for too much pre-knowledge. this does ask for openness, awareness, recognition we are, after all, talking about humans in human worlds psychological and social...
she talks about what feminism is and is not, versus the 'angry' sort and the 'girl power' sort, she offers four metaphors to understand meaning of 'oppression', such as the, however gilded, 'birdcage', to the 'invisible knapsack', to the 'intersection' multiplication, to 'the basement' of 'family resemblances' of all sorts...
she investigates the social construction of 'gender', and its problems for actual women, then the equally problematic social construction of 'sex'. as philosophers she references de Beauvoir existentialism and particularly 'the second sex', but this focus on authenticity is no difficulty for me...
she talks about the reality of sexual violence, the extreme disproportion this visits women, the conflicts about pornography, objectification, consent, the real world application of her theoretical work. this is perhaps too introductory for some readers, but is an easy, compelling read, in one siting......more
20730: once again book I do not know if should be named 'feminismlit' or 'philosopif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
20730: once again book I do not know if should be named 'feminismlit' or 'philosophy-feminist'. she pre-dates such identity by 1 600 years. and her concerns, concerns of this bio, are not specifically 'feminist'. on the other, how her persona, history, have been deployed seem to be tied to contemporaneous conceptions of women throughout the millennia. had read of her before, had seen the film 'agora'. this is much more complete portrayal of her life and times. this is mostly history and bio. she left no philosophical school. she was certainly well-regarded in her times, as teacher, thinker, public intellectual, counsellor, but we have unfortunately no extant works. her posthumous carer as symbol need not overwhelm her reality. she would have been remarkable in any time......more
20718: whether this is actually feministlit or philosophy-feminist I do not know, if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
20718: whether this is actually feministlit or philosophy-feminist I do not know, certainly the authors addressed are women and it is historically not distant, though the topics these women worked on were not specifically 'feminist'. this is very good group biography, with individual biographies leading to interactions in mid-century Oxford. this sort of philosophy is not familiar to me: linguistic, analytic, anglophone in general, though it does intrigue that perhaps I should read more of the Wittgenstein. his later work sounds interesting...
Mary Midgley is the one I have read and enjoyed most. the brief early contrast of the 'physics/billiard ball' picture that seems to have captured many if not all anglophone philosophers, and the more 'biological /interactive' picture she follows seems much more fruitful. She also points out the 'Dawkins sublime' idea of brave humans confronting valueless universe etc. I also liked iris Murdoch's interpretation of Sartre as romantic realist and his equal sublime...
When Dawkins says the universe is essentially cold, meaningless, valueless... but of course neither he nor anyone else can live that way- is this not indication there IS meaning and value? At least to the extent of living any way?...more
220516: this becomes more interesting as it progresses from naive to sophisticatedif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
220516: this becomes more interesting as it progresses from naive to sophisticated 'expression' of ufo phenomena. the authors examined cross back and forth over the rigid divisions between rational and scientific and mystical and fantastic. if nothing else, I like the distinction ufos are neither flying nor objects but are 'aerial phenomena' that are unidentified. the early chapters are of primarily historical interest, the latter chapters theory. the paranormal and the sacred seem to occupy the same post-modern register. it is not required to be credulous but only open-minded......more
220324: this is the same translation, annotation, commentary, and source as Tao Teif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
220324: this is the same translation, annotation, commentary, and source as Tao Te Ching, so no difference in that. editor suggests this as first read of series 'mystical classics of the world'. editor here argues in intro for primacy of this text before all 'eastern philosophy', argues it is more than simple rejection of Confuianism but has its own power, that it is concerned with individual rather than group ethics......more
220611: this is probably the most academically accurate of the translations I haveif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
220611: this is probably the most academically accurate of the translations I have read of this book, but still prefer commentary of Tao Te Ching. this brings up the question: is exactness of rendering less or more important than readability?
this version allows various meanings of translations, various organizations and omissions of lines or entire stanzas, and excellent introductory essay on era, Taoism, confucianism, common terms dao, de, tian and how they are translated. he uses the mawangdui a and b text as baseline, being the oldest extant, but also the guodian verses in comparison, primarily in mentioning 'this line/stanza is not in guodian version'...
as academically important, he describes the actual graphs of Chinese characters and what they might suggest, eg one=yi=flat line, dividing heaven and earth. essential understanding is that contrary to patriarchal heredity as primary in confucianism, there is absolute equality of all ten thousand things under the mother, the Way, from creatures to humans, and there is no order that the world be subjected to human ends...
some translations I can recognise from other versions but to know more I would have to learn to read ancient Chinese, but some lines I had thought were particularly concise summations of Taoism turn out to be common sayings of the time (rule great kingdom as cooking small fish, eg. meddle with little as possible), some concepts so familiar that I must have read in earlier translations (water is gentle but alone can carve hardest rock), some concepts remain difficult to accept uninterpreted (full bellies and empty minds is how to rule), but there is always the possibility of further translations and commentaries......more
220319: my knowledge of history of feminism is general, limited to big names, big if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
220319: my knowledge of history of feminism is general, limited to big names, big events, big productions, not details that students might know. so i know of simone de Beauvoir and The Second Sex (not read), betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique (not read), Germaine Greer, NOW, gloria steinhiem, Ms magazine, but exactly why Angela Davis was fugitive i did not know, nor black women's movements, nor working class, nor lesbian and/or political feminism... i do not know what i expected, but this is more history than philosophy. this is a lot of potted articles, a lot of graphics, mostly covering anglo-american countries, some other cultures, entirely 'second wave' (feminism from 1966-2000?...)...
as history this reminds me of my age, for some events, thoughts, arts, were at least on the fringes of my youthful consciousness. never very political in any way, i was sort of unconsciously feminist much as i am anti-racist, because equality just seemed given and not something to be argued for. but i do look at some authors i have enjoyed just for how extreme they are, never taking them seriously but technically, eg William S. Burroughs... i have a feminismlit bookshelf but in many cases books are there simply because they foreground women and not in particularly feminist narratives, eg Christine Feehan...
this follows the brief of Indian Buddhist Philosophy: Metaphysics as Ethics, but I find it more tenable, more open, more relevant and cross-cultural critique, that includes some reflection on what pa
AT THIS POINT I LOSE MY REVIEW: I MUST AGAIN BE TOO LONG! AARRGH!
basic argument, relevant to each chapter, 4. self, 5. consciousness, 6. phenomenology, 7. epistemology. 8. logic, language, 9. ethics, 10. methodological potscript... returns to chapter 1. what is bd philosophy. 2. metaphysics 1: interdependence, impermanence.3. metaphysics 2: emptiness... this is 'virtuous circle' argument works for me. read this book, he helps make it all connect probably even to western insular philosophers...
basic argument, relevant to each chapter, 4. self, 5. consciousness, 6. phenomenology, 7. epistemology. 8. logic, language, 9. ethics, 10. methodological postscript... returns to chapter 1. what is bd philosophy. 2. metaphysics 1: interdependence, impermanence.3. metaphysics 2: emptiness... this is 'virtuous circle' argument works for me. read this book, he helps make it all connect probably even to western insular philosophers...
what is bd philosophy: this is extended argument of why, from 'western', particularly 'analytic' perspective, buddhist thought is to be considered not simply religion but also philosophy. this is not something i question. i have read about 128 books that involve bd as philosophy. while less than phenomenologists french and german this is more than anglo-american analytics so prevalent in this oxford text. i would alter subtitle to: what bd means to (western) analytic philosophy. in fact, i would entirely reverse the order of investigation: what does (western) analytic philosophy offer bd philosophy, but that is another book. for this chapter does express just how very different these attitudes are, as evidence in language, concerns, style of argument, as exemplified here where an assertion is not approached in any linear pattern but recursive, in repetition, in refocusing on central metaphysical concepts...
metaphysics one, assumed, underlying or overarching, of buddhist thought is first 'interdependence' and 'impermanence'. in one point one, on any reflection it is not difficult to see that ourselves, our worlds, our universe, are all interdependent, as perhaps western texts also argue but i read first through bd: for here the key assertion is that there need be no ground, no absolute, no origin, but that interdependence 'goes all the way down'... this is possible when there is no transcendent source such as God or Being... metaphysics one point two is impermanence, again not difficult concept, which is implied by the first point, for how does the ten thousand things come to interact interdependently without some arising, others departing, for point one is in time as well as more familiar space: i read that an example is the usefulness of death, for how does sprout come without death of seed, how does grass come without death of sprout, how does animal come without death of grass...
metaphysics two is subsequently implied, is truly rather more difficult concept, but finally inescapable conclusion of metaphysics one, assumed, underlying or overarching, and this is 'emptiness'. it is important this is not 'nothingness' or 'lack of existence', but lack of 'essence', that favourite descriptive matrix for western thought. emptiness is misunderstood as claims toward that big bad of nihilism, but is in fact, paradoxically, against such interpretation of the real: for how can there be individual essence if all is interdependent, for how can there be essence that persists though universal impermanence. emptiness is refusal of 'inherent essence' as it conflicts with metaphysics one and two... emptiness is ultimate truth, not the 'conventional' real through which we navigate our human lives of convenient truth, grass is green, snow is cold etc. though there will be some argument it is only though convention we can know ultimate, that convention is 'truth' as well, and emptiness should be conceived in terms of vessel to be filled with real rather than illusory absence...
this is when we begin to elaborate consequences of thinking through implications of 2 and 3 above, 4. self, which is psychologically considered 'essential' to western thought from an egoistic insistence, which falls against the arguments or three above, not difficult concept but wholly other impression of healthy human... who integrates, understands, enacts the outcomes of two and three above
consciousness, which is the last bastion westerners claim as definite proof of existence of 'essential' self, which is found vulnerable to simply more subtle variations on the metaphysics one, two, three... for what is this persisting thing we call 'consciousness' but ongoing stream of mental events, and how can this be identified with persisting something like self, as ultimate truth...
phenomenology, here the author admits the historically-determined multiple definitions of the term, which is for me not hegel but husserl, though my attitudes are those of french philosopher merleau-ponty, he finds connections with wittgenstein, strawson etc. (of whom i have read little)... but this is primarily demonstrating these ancient and more recent indic philosophers precede western thinkers in many ways, which is where i would reverse emphasis of subtitle as mentioned above...
epistemology is the contrast of western concept of knowledge as 'justified true belief' with bd concern with two levels of truth, conventional and ultimate, first asserting bd works without universals, with pure particularity, with 'nominalism' (here is frustrating aspect of westerners trying to render bd terms in their thought-universes, with variable exactness), next by investigating how bd thought understands 'true illusions' such as mirages...
logic, language, further proof i should try more wittgenstein (7)...
ethics, returns to metaphysics one and two and three, to interdependence and impermanence, to all subsequent implications in chapters 4. self, 5. consciousness, 6. phenomenology, 7. epistemology. 8. logic, language, 9. ethics...
methodological postscript, returns to chapter one with final exhortation to (western) philosophers, to take budddhist philosophy as livng, breathing as well as venerable source for whatever analytic thought they employ. for me, the application goes the other way. for me, it is, here like any art, limitations of the media which i find most unfortunate: it is clear that the argument(s) for buddhist philosophy is (are) virtuous circle, so why are we unable to express this in form, like the infinite book posited by borges? this returns to chapter one...
230726: this is the grand narrative. this is about 5 000 years of global history inif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
230726: this is the grand narrative. this is about 5 000 years of global history in 500 pages (plus footnotes, bibliography). perhaps this works best if you remember received wisdom of anthropology, archaeology, history, from 20 years ago. i do. i am part of history, now...
when studying anthropology i recall some dissatisfaction that only by now can be accounted for after some other reading: it is entirely eurocentric, at least on first or second year level, and there was little reference to how people within such cultures saw themselves. and later europeans whom they contacted. this is the 'indigenous critique' that the authors recount, deploy, argue for, in clearing 'civilised' prejudices against 'primitive' cultures. which of course were and are not so primitive...
beginning in the eastern woodlands of North America, there is convincing argument that the flow of cultural interchange, particularly politics, is more from the 'new world' to Europe. there are facts that 'freedom' as political concept, as in the Algonkin, the Haudenosaunee, is unknown in Europe of monarchies. there are the conceptual disconnects between ideas of 'ownership' and how 'money' can mutate into 'power'. there is contention humans have lived through various political forms but somehow in the past 500 years have become 'stuck' in this one that is not working, with huge disparity in freedoms as defined by monetary regimes, this one that is not originated by private property but which is manifest in that form as side-effect...
really really love this book: so impressed, so convinced, that questions rise despite my enthusiasm- as this is survey text created in some ways against popular mischaracterisation of past cultures, peoples, am i missing some essential knowledge? are the authors lonely voices in the wilderness and we should believe those portrayals of human history more ideologically, politically, philosophically, familiar? is this only meaningless speculation because by definition history only happens once, so alternate histories are intellectual games with no 'cash-value'? well, as one of my bookshelves is althistory and on the other i am writer of fictions, which are by definition more or less exactly what they might be accused of (is this only elaborate game, that is how it started), is this ultimately simply fiction...?
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