Category: Philosophy
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Here are my CRAP reflections on Chapter 15 of Longinus’ “On the Sublime.” Criticism Longinus begins this chapter by emphasizing the importance of phantasia, or visualization: “…dignity, grandeur, and urgency are to a very large degree derived from visualization (phantasia).” He distinguishes this from the mere production of images. Instead, phantasia is a vital mental…
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In Chapter 14 of “On the Sublime” Longinus lays out one of the most radical creative challenges in literary history: “We too… should carefully consider how perhaps Homer might have said this very thing, or how Plato, or Demosthenes, or (in history) Thucydides, might have given it sublimity.” Criticism Longinus doesn’t just ask writers to…
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Longinus, in Chapter 13 of On the Sublime, offers a compelling meditation on imitation and inspiration: “[T]here is another way that leads to sublimity… It is the imitation and emulation of the greater writers and poets of the past… For many authors are inspired by the spirit of others…” Criticism Longinus views sublimity not as…
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“I do believe there is life after death. But it’s nothing like the Christian belief of heaven and hell. I believe it’s more like a weird sort of purgatory. Some of our energy is passed on to other living beings. Our consciousness, I feel, drifts about, sometimes remaining anchored for a time, potentially a long…
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“I have always felt like I was two wrong turns away from complete destruction. We all are, and we’re fooling ourselves if we think we’re not.” – Jami Attenberg This piece of raw honesty from Jami Attenberg comes from her memoir, “I Came All This Way To Meet You: Writing My Way Home,” when discussing…
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In my college years, I often lamented at length in my journals about so-called higher education being rarely more than an extension of high school. On some rare occasions, a professor would present more advanced and challenging material, but those happenings were few and far between. I was thinking about what my first class would…
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Here’s the problem: it’s EXTREMELY hard to be random nowadays. “General Interest” blogs don’t often fare well unless they have super-viral content and extremely powerful social network presences. I’m not a pro at social media. I’ve rarely had anything go viral, outside of a few miracles on StumbleUpon, which sadly no longer exists. I’ve had…
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Here’s a wild thought: most of the things rattling around in our heads aren’t real. By “real,” I mean you can’t physically poke at them. It’s all just synapses firing off inside our skulls, telling us stories about things we think exist. Still, real or imagined, we love to give those intangible ideas a physical…
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Whenever I get in a bad mood, I do what I can to reframe the situation. I try to put what’s negative into a more positive frame so that I can build off of that. One of the ideas that I’ve gotten when trying to figure out how to be more positive is the idea…
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I’ve been watching a lot of philosophy videos on Khan Academy. I’ve dabbled in philosophy a lot over the years. Yet I’ve never actually sat and read many original philosophical works. When I have, I find myself lost. It seems like I can’t put myself into the right state of mind very often to understand…