Dinesh's photos with the keyword: Peter Watson

Richard Rorty quoted by Peter Watson *

17 Jan 2016 2 133
In his book "The Age of Atheists"

Poetry *

15 Jan 2016 2 170
At pains to show that poetry is at the forefront (another reason for hope, another form of hope), he (Milosz) asserts that what is new is that our future will not be determined by jets as the means of transport, or by a decrease in infant mortality, important as those things may be. "It is determined by humanity's emergence as a new elemental force; until now humanity had been divided into castes distinguished by dress, mentality, and mores." This transformation is causing the disappearance of certain mythic notions, "widespread in the last century, about the specific and presumably eternal features of the peasant, worker, and intellectual. Humanity as an elemental force, the result of technology and mass education, means that man is opening up to science and art on an unprecedented scale." Is the disappearance of religion in our lives any different from disappearance of some of the nineteenth century myths, embodied in imperialism, racial superiority and colonialism? He asks. No one mourns their passing no one foresees their return. ~ Page 452 As preparation and explanation of what poetry is, and seeks to be, and how it brings meaning to our lives and what type of meaning, Heaney en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamus_Heaney can hardly be bettered "[A poem] begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down it turns a course of lucky events and ends in a clarification of life -- not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion....in its repose the poem gives us a premonition of harmonies desired and not inexpensively achieved. In this way, the order of art becomes an achievement intimating a possible order beyond itself, although its relation to that further order remain promissory rather than obligatory. Art is not an inferior reflection of some ordained heavenly system but a rehearsal of it in earthly terms; art does not trace the given map of a better reality but improvises an inspired sketch of it." There are two points here that relate directly to our theme. One, that poetry offers clarification that is "not necessarily great," and two, that art intimates a possible order beyond itself. ~ Page 457

Mozartian Joy

23 Dec 2015 95
....... He (Bernard Shaw) wrote a book entitled 'The Quintessence of Ibsenism' in which he set out a lot of his own interpretations of Ibsen: that he had sought to rescue his generation from materialism; that the aim of life is self-improvement, self-fulfillment; that morality is not fixed but evolves; that standards can never be eternal; that modern European literature is more important in teaching us how to live than the Bible, and that "Mozartian joy" is the aim of life. ~ Page 100