Birth: February 20, 1947
The result can be quite new - perhaps a tendency to judge that something we've never conceived of is possible, or to feel sympathy for a trait or a t….
To my mind, Death in Venice represents an enormous advance in Mann's literary development, not simply for the commonly appreciated reason that he cra….
The point of philosophy, as I see it, is to change thinking, and thereby to change the conversation..
It is hard to hide our genes completely. However devoted someone may be to the privacy of his genotype, others with enough curiosity and knowledge ca….
The amalgam of psychological attitudes we form is the synthetic complex. It may fall apart quite quickly as further reflection or further experience ….
I'm a fan of Hugh Kenner, Richard Ellman, Lionel Trilling and Frank Kermode. All these people have taught me how to read - but perhaps, above all lit….
Mann's Death in Venice actually contains a snippet of philosophy about the second question, when Aschenbach, collapsed in the plaza, engages in his q….
I suspect that any worthwhile exploration of these deep questions about living requires going beyond abstract discussions to the vivid presentation o….
I argue against literal interpretation of religious doctrines. Religions make progress when they emancipate themselves from literalism, and take thei….
Any writer who could handle all these different voices would deserve high praise, but to do so without any sense of jarring or incoherence is an extr….
When I try to outline the history of ethical life, it's sometimes possible to find evidence for a hypothesis about how important transitions actually….