Occasionally I’ve worried that my emphasis on the uncomfortable aspects of creativity might strike some people as dwelling on things that are best underplayed or endured silently, and then I ask myself if it might be prudent to suppress this truth or to tone it down or sweeten it by overemphasizing the fun and rewarding … Continue reading Essential discomfort in creativity
We aren’t all that in love with old ideas. And we don’t really hate new ideas. It’s that space in-between old and new that gives us hives.
I have mixed feelings about Bruce Nussbaum’s “Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment. So What’s Next?” On one hand, I agree with every word of it. For instance, this statement is dead-on: “Companies were comfortable and welcoming to Design Thinking because it was packaged as a process.” Design thinking more or less had to bow … Continue reading Answering Bruce Nussbaum
There comes a point when how you think imposes tangible limits on what you can think. A problem is recognized — felt — but when you try to think it out, you arrive at the edge of thinkability. You cannot resolve this problem with the intellectual moves that ordinarily work to resolve your everyday problems. … Continue reading Pro-lifer
My friend Fish wrote an interesting piece on the decay of language, inspired by the miniseries The Tudors. What impressed him most about the show was the language – how the courtiers spoke with such elegance and precision, and how much more they were able to communicate. He found himself feeling conflicted: he would love … Continue reading Xenophobia
The ad hominem argument is our chief means of muting the humanity of others. It strips others of the most human quality: the capacity to teach. * When we take an objective stance toward another person, this means is we are not open to being taught by them. We might learn from the other, but … Continue reading Teacher
“A philosophical problem has the form: I don’t know my way about.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein * When we do not know how to orient ourselves to a situation we feel apprehensive. We are aware that a problem exists, but we do not know how to orient ourselves to the problem, and the problem lacks definite … Continue reading Sharing questions
I reviewed some old posts last week and was happy to discover that I liked them. Here’s a rewording of one of them: Another person exists to us in at least two ways: as fellow objects and fellow subjects. The subjective aspect of other people here is called “the other”. The subjective influence of other … Continue reading An intersubjective indication of God’s personhood
The essence of morality (in its relationship to phenomenological philosophy) from Levinas’s Totality and Infinity. But the presentation and the development of the notions employed [in Totality and Infinity] owe everything to the phenomenological method. Intentional analysis is the search for the concrete. Notions held under the direct gaze of the thought that defines them … Continue reading There it is
I picked through several books today without getting traction in any one of them. I started with Richard J. Bernstein’s The New Constellation: Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity looking for references to Martin Buber and Emanuel Levinas (who is generally considered Buber’s heir). I was looking for a summary of their differences, mostly to see if … Continue reading The I, the We, the Other, and transcendence
1: Tao 2: Yang, Yin 3: Heaven, Man, Earth 4: East, South, West, North * or 4: Dawn, Noon, Sunset, Midnight or 4: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter or 4: Birth, Youth, Adulthood, Senescene or 4: Intoxication, Delusion, Anxiety, Perplexity