john rakestraw

A human side to #philosophy/philosophers:

“It still seems incredible to me that I managed to get both things, the ‘love of my life’ and a oneness with my self. And yet, I only got the one thing when I got the other. But finally I know what happiness is.”

Hannah Arendt, in a letter to her husband Heinrich Blücher (also a philosopher), 18 Sept 1937 (Within Four Walls, p. 41)

#marriage #flourish #happiness #selfhood #love #hannaharendt @bookstodon

Apr 23, 2025 at 4:08pmWeb
Show threadJames Endres Howell has movedApr 23, 2025

Feyerabend: "My life has been the result of accidents, not of goals and principles. My intellectual work forms only an insignificant part of it. Love and personal understanding are much more important. Leading intellectuals with their zeal for objectivity kill these personal elements. They are criminals, not the leaders of mankind."

... published in 1991 in his entry in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA

mic drop

@johnrakestraw @bookstodon

#philosophy #love #feyerabend

Show threadjohn rakestrawApr 23, 2025
@jameshowell @bookstodon Interesting observation. Thanks for posting. I definitely agree that all sorts of accidents — both on the grand scale of the universe and on the small scale of day to day life — have a significant impact on the universe and on an individual life. And that love and understanding are crucial. But I see more significance in the intellectual than Feyerabend does here. (That fits, I suppose, with my take on his philosophy of science.)
Show threadJames Endres Howell has movedApr 23, 2025

@johnrakestraw My reading of it is not that Feyerabend necessarily minimizes his own or others' particular contributions. In the context of his work, I read him here simply condemning ideologues, especially that breed of cynical ideologues we call careerists, for exalting necessarily simplistic conceptual frameworks over anarchic reality.

@bookstodon

Show threadjohn rakestrawApr 23, 2025
@jameshowell I feared I was responding a bit flippantly -- it's been years (decades, actually) since I read Feyerabend (and Kuhn, Toulmin, etc) on the philosophy of science. And I never read any of Feyerabend's other writing
Show threadJames Endres Howell has movedApr 23, 2025

@johnrakestraw Flippantly? Dude, WE'RE ON MASTODON

😂

Seriously, we're just trading hot takes.

I teach science courses to science majors and never once in 20+ years have I had the nerve to bring up philosophy of science.

It comes up a lot, though, in my general education courses for non-science majors. And everything I say I carefully preface with "If there was a self-respecting philosopher of science in the room with us, they would be screaming bloody murder"