Darth Vader: “I am your father, Luke.”

Luke: “Well. . .I guess it’s not THAT bad, is it?”

Umberto Eco: “But I am your adopted father.”

Luke: “NoooOOOOoooooooo!”

Thanks for the words of encouragement! (The Battle Hymn of the Republic begins to play) “Onward! Forever onward! Word by word! Independent clause by independent clause! We shall conquer! We will attack each page with purpose, and measure our progress by the chapters which litter the streets. (Are your eyes tearing up yet, Allison? Feeling patriotic? ) And at the end, we shall stand together and dare the man they call Eco to write another! And which time, our comrade, Alexandre Enkerli will turn and say, “Actually, Mr. Eco has written many books. Here, I have a few I’ve already read. They’re mostly in French, though.” That’s when Allison gives him the most evil stare, while I begin my days as an alcoholic, and walk the streets mumbling, “They’re mostly in French, though!” LOL!

Alexandre! We must meet some day. I would like to talk to you about Eco and semiotics. I have (and have made multiple attempts at reading) Eco’s Serendipities: Language and Lunacy, and Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition. Insofar as me not liking his style, I’ll have to disagree. The truth is every time I start reading him, I end up having to look something up, which ultimately distracts me, and I start reading something else. I swear you have to have a Ph.D. in This, That, and Everything else to actually read the guy If he has kids, I bet they have “daddy never has time for us” issues. Just where does he find time to do all his research on so many topics. No, I can’t say that I’ve read Borges, though, after reading about him, I will definitely put him on the list! Thanks Alexandre. Thanks for making me have to buy more books, and look up more stuff! Now the laundry is going to have to wait ANOTHER day

I recently read The Bastard of Istanbul. (inspired by the ROS interview…..) It took me several starts to stick with it, but in the end I was stunned and would read it again. Good luck….

PEGGYSUE!!! I, me, Bobby, the oldest, yet least mature of three siblings, he who writes dialog for stuffed animals, was going to point out life is filled with paradoxes! (which is what makes it so interesting/enjoyable) I can’t believe you stole my line you……you embezzler! May Starbucks infest your island! LOL When we finally meet, I’m now forced to give you the silent treatment for 12.5 seconds! That’s final Haha! Grrrrrrr!

I noticed Mary just put up a link for our Emerson essays! Yippee!

Allison! You job is to count up every word one of us uses that is over 3 syllables! For each word you find, we send you a quarter. And he/she who uses the least amount of “big” words keeps the money at the end of each essay discussion! Sound like a plan? Yes, yes, you get to keep the interest as payment

I reread “History” last night! Okay I read the first few paragraphs, and concluded there are a weeks of discussion right in those first 3 + paragraphs! Conclusion: this is going to take longer than a week per essay…..which is fine with me

PS

There’s a book called A Passion for Wisdom: A Very Brief History of Philosophy. It’s by Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins. It’s very good!

Bobby I do agree with you that philosophy is quite possibly Satanic. I noticed that in”western” philosophy there are very few women. My theory is that women just don’t have that kind of time (and apparently many of these european men didn’t have much in the way editors). ;^)

We should start with ourselves though- which is where everyone has to start, including or especially the greats. Years ago I discovered that I am most comfortable with simple language and simple thoughts. When ever I am presented with something that seems complicated or dense I try to prune it down to something clear and essential. On the other hand as I get older I find I am losing my vocabulary- so I welcome the challenge of words – ones that I knew and forgot from disuse or new ones. I love it when a writer uses an uncommon word and then fortifies that meaning by repeating the idea in another way. Emerson does a lot of that I find.

Don’t worry about not having done much philosophy. In fact, consider yourself lucky. As one who majored in it, I concluded a long time ago that philosophy is nothing more than crack You take a naive freshman, give him a little logic – start off with the easy stuff – and as his guard begins to dissipate, you nonchalantly mention the Ship of Theseus, i.e. does an object retain its identity through time, and when he’s totally confused, you introduce him to epistemology (how do you know you know?). And after he’s THROUGHLY whacked out, you hand him a diploma. Congratulations! Your head is full of questions that have no answers, and you now owe $50,000 in student loans!

On a serious note, I’ve always thought if I were the devil, and wanted to divide God from his creation, I would introduce Philosophy to the world.

I am glad to hear Potter remind us that this is not a race; there is no final we need to study for. It’s safe to say, however, everyone is excited to get started! Thanks, mynocturama, for sending you write up on History. I’m eager to read your thoughts/views, as well as everyone’s responses/point of view, etc. Just please, PLEASE, no one use words like Metaphysics, Epistemology, paradox, etc.:)

Diving in blind…..

I have a problem with the “hurry up already” feeling which stems from the schedule that was published above. On the other hand if we don’t have some sort of schedule it won’t happen. I would rather that Mynocturama post when he feels he has something, after all it’s the first and was due immediately.

I have been working on Self-Reliance and I have to remember it’s not a doctoral dissertation but I keep getting deeper and deeper. After all it’s something just to start us off in discussion. I must remember that. But leading a discussion is more than a casual reading. So maybe this could take longer than one every week, beginnings and ends, but I see, a rolling, ongoing thing as we get some good discussion ( hopefully).

I welcome the opportunity to do this. I have never belonged to a book club ( don’t intend to) but Emerson is so special and we have a good group and a way to hold things together.

If Mary sets up 12 threads we will have the advantages I describe- but also the disadvantages of not being able to modify our posts ( and ongoing problem). All the more reason to have something more worked on.

I have to admit, that never having used a wiki, I do wonder how the dialog will flow. I guess that will be part of our little experiment.

I printed the first essay out last night and only read one page before getting interrupted by my daughter. But my very first thought was, “How Jungian!”

Still it would be good to have a thread here on the home page- maybe an Emerson all-purpose one.

I have not called for “Self Reliance” though I am working on something that I may put up. (Do I sound too over-confident?) I

If others are like me- then it takes some time to keep sinking into the groove while going about other business.

I’ve never actively participated in a Wiki, either. I just learned that you have to log in to see how things work. If you log in and then click on the “History” topic, you will see tabs at the top of the page. One of them is “Discussion”. I put a test post there to see if this is where we get started. I think it’s hard to tell how it will work when it’s empty.

I know there was talk of a thread going up on this site, but I don’t see it yet and the wiki could be an interesting thing to check out. (Especially with that editing feature!!)