…uno de los deberes del poeta, una de las ambiciones del poeta, es restituir la palabra a la magia primordial, hacer que la palabra sea un mito. Jorge Luis Borges, “Mi Prosa.” My translation: “…one of the duties of the poet, one of the ambitions of the poet, is to return the word to the primordial magic, to make that the word be a myth.” Read more

From the bottom of my heart it is all the same to me what the professional philosophers of today think of me; for it is not for them that I am writing. Ludwig Wittgenstein, taken from The Duty of Genius (by Ray Monk). It is one of two epigraphs to A Primer for Philosophy and Education, a book I am piloting this fall at the University of North Dakota. Read more

Possessive individualism has thoroughly routed civic republicanism; hucksterism has vanquished virtue; a mindless commitment to economic growth has rendered the ideals of simplicity, balance, and voluntary renunciation all but unintelligible as guides to public policy rather than merely to individual salvation. It is too late for a happy ending. George Scialabba, “Plutocratic Vistas,” in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Read more