Let’s begin with a few axioms and theses: Axiom 1. Freedom and servitude are opposite notions. Axiom 2. Instead, servitude and domination are complementary notions. Axiom 3. Domination and servitude establish social inequality. Thesis 1. All forms of state entail some sort of domination and servitude, hence inequality. Therefore, they restric freedom. Thesis 2. Freedom…
Post-Nihilist Meanderings on the Shores of Mythology, Tragedy, Poetry, and Enigma
It wasn’t long. It only lasted four hundred years. But the beautiful thing is that we can assist to its birth and death. The beautiful thing and the sad thing. It first surfaces in Homer’s Iliad, and it dies with Aristotle, in Aristotle. Strangely, we can presence both events. Yet we can only understand the…
Oedipus Rex
Duplicity. “When Oedipus speaks he sometimes says something other than or even the opposite of what he thinks he is saying.” Yet “the ambiguity of what he says does not reflect a duplicity in his character, which is perfectly consistent, but, more profoundly, the duality of his being. He is double. He is himself a…
Walking in Beauty: Philosophy & Eros
In his Letters II and VII, Plato argues that the insights of philosophy “cannot be put into words like other subjects can be.” They are so simple that they appear to be laughable to those who do not take part in the philosophical life or way of living, as it is only through the latter…
Chaosmosis and the Feminine Cosmos
The coming of the Cosmos into being is not only a present-day scientific concern, but also a recurring object of thought. From the Babylonian Enuma Elish and numerous indigenous cosmogonies to the Big Bang theory in contemporary physics and Félix Guattari’s concept of Chamosmosis – to only mention a few examples – it has never…
Pure Thought at the Speed of Light
It is possible to distinguish among two major linguistic functions: one denotative, the other one poetic. We have already touched upon the latter when talking about gods, heroes, and mortal things. The denotative is likewise essential to any living, as by naming things we manage to identify them. And this, moreover, is the basis on…
Giacometti’s Women
They are made of earth and rock. These women. The mountain’s skin. The waves of the ocean have sculpted them. They traced salty waters guiding their ships. Open. Bodies. They stand in fire becoming spirits. Burning matches. The space they share is a ghostly power… and sacrifice.
Those Who(se Bodies) Do Not Look Like Us
Early in the morning at the Pnyx, west of the Acropolis, Aristotle and Spinoza walk and chat on the eve of the Greater Eleusinian Mysteries… Aristotle: “But don’t we say that the body is defined in two ways: as a compound of form and matter, on the one hand, and, in physical terms, by its…
Fra Angelico’s Wings qua Event
The theme is a commonplace: a virgin receives the visit of an angel who tells her she will bear a divine child. The narrative entirely conventional: the angel visits her in her room, outside of which a more-or-less Edenic garden is also offered to our view, eventually with Adam and Eve being expelled from it…
On Beauty and Perfection // Carlos
Perfect is an adjective meaning thoroughly done (Latin per-fectus) and thereby done with care and eventually too, then, completed or free of fault. If, as a general rule, what is beautiful is that which is perfect, then neither everyone nor everything can be equally beautiful. Conversely, if, as a general rule, what is beautiful is…