Agencies of Scale

By JohnR |

When Augustine came to Rome from his home in North Africa just before 400 A.D., he was coming to the cultural centre of that part of the world, rather as one trying to “make it” might travel now from a small mid-western town to New York City. But whereas New York has been a major […]

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Perceptual Storytelling

By JohnR |

Our perception does not happen in a moment, but unfolds over time in concert with our actions. I notice the car pulling out of the parking lot, because, in the context of my cycling down the street, it draws my attention to it by the threat its emergence poses to me.  Its appearance wells up […]

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A Sensitive Matter

By JohnR |

Hurting another person is a very easy thing to do. We often think of “hurt” in terms of the pain induced by bodily injury.  This obviously is an important kind of hurt, but we should be careful to construe it rightly.  The harm is done to the body, but the hurt is a matter of […]

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The Law of Laws

By JohnR |

There are many essential aspects of human life that are inherently non-individual, that is, aspects of life that individuals depend upon but that no individual alone could ever define, create or maintain.  Language is one of most obvious examples of this: minimally, language must be something adopted and developed by at least two people acting […]

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The Health that Really Matters

By JohnR |

In the Gorgias, Socrates draws our attention to an important parallel between the human organism and the human psyche—both can be healthy or unhealthy.  Though we are very accustomed to thinking in terms of bodily health, we can find ourselves to be quite inarticulate when we consider our psychological health. When we think about the […]

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By Your Leave

By JohnR |

“I can finally relax,” she said.  “I couldn’t really enjoy the music when we were with them.  I really like those guys, but I’m not at ease with them.  I’m happy now to be able to go out with you, so that I can just focus on what I’m doing.”  That’s something I heard recently, […]

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