tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-105533682011-04-21T21:27:00.948-07:00The human capacity to conceive of new ideas and directions is as great as our proclivity to conform to tradition. This dialectics between unbridled creativity and mental inertia determines the dynamics of philosophy and all other traditions of inquiry. Understanding a new direction and the necessity to take it is not the same as walking that path. Since I am a philosopher but also a man, this blog pursues these issues on both a conceptual and personal level.Mathijshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14186180865801301185noreply@blogger.comBlogger101100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10553368.post-18484702928194669262008-02-06T02:38:00.000-08:002008-02-06T02:54:43.771-08:00

We live in a very organized world. Most of our daily lives are dominated by institutions, structures and protocols, which more or less create the preconditions and possible directions of our lives. These rational structures are in part inherited from the rationalist cultural revolutions of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. During that period of history a loosely connected feudal society

Mathijshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14186180865801301185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10553368.post-49951959004585042712007-12-03T05:32:00.000-08:002008-11-12T02:17:45.273-08:00

I was at a meeting of De Publieke Zaak last saturday, which left me with some fairly ambiguous feelings. De Publieke Zaak is a platform in which active citizens work together on ideas to improve the functioning of our government and society in general. I'm all for changing the dominance based power structure, blatantly inspired by the industrial paradigm, that charactirizes all institutions in my

Mathijshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14186180865801301185noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10553368.post-72142112190180489212007-10-23T02:26:00.001-07:002007-11-20T04:04:50.383-08:00

I was reading a newspaper the other day, something I rarely do, and came across an article written by John Gray in which he puts forward his case for a new embrace of realism. Dr. Gray is a philosopher and professor at the London School of Economics. I agree with much of what he says, but most of what I agree with is trivial, at least in my eyes. There is no hope of engaging the problems in

Mathijshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14186180865801301185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10553368.post-1135844197804352452005-12-29T00:16:00.000-08:002008-02-06T03:03:05.574-08:00

When I was studying logic we learned a number of different ways to formulate so called truth conditions in the different systems of logic, or 'languages' we were fooling around with. Some of my friends were studying Derrida and the other post modernists at the same time, and we would have interesting, sometimes confusing, and usually polemic discussions. We logicians learned that truth is a

Mathijshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14186180865801301185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10553368.post-1134752404964694472005-12-16T08:59:00.000-08:002008-11-12T03:50:55.476-08:00

I grew up with Errol Garner and Oscar Peterson, and Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Paul Desmond was my favorite musician before I discovered the brilliance of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, and Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins and all those guys. I remember myself as a 10 years old kid in his room on a Sunday afternoon, playing his tapes on a Phillips portable tape recorder… playing Brubecks

Mathijshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14186180865801301185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10553368.post-1133538559354891292005-12-02T07:48:00.000-08:002007-12-03T06:42:16.142-08:00

I have a critical mind. That is not always a blessing. Coupled with impatience and a strong sense of justice, my critical mind can be a source of great unrest. I have been possessed with an interest in contoversy for as long as I can remember. I have always enjoyed asking the questions that lead to the opposite of what is being claimed. If someone is saying this, what happens if the opposite is

Mathijshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14186180865801301185noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10553368.post-1133100451150429222005-11-27T05:59:00.000-08:002007-12-03T06:44:05.792-08:00

Obstacles to development: I've had a series of events happen to me at a young age that effectively destroyed a lot of self-value. I say this not as an excuse, but as something I am confronted with almost daily; a severe inability to be proud of who I am. Not that pride is necessarily a good thing, but in my heart of hearts there are things I despise about myself. Other than that I've always been

Mathijshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14186180865801301185noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10553368.post-1131549441914683062005-11-09T06:39:00.000-08:002005-11-27T07:03:03.980-08:00

My blog has been in state of suspended animation since its start some months ago. I've been busy of course with other things, but there is also an other reason. Some internal obstacle seems to prevent me from readily and freely start throwing my words and thoughts at the world out there. The more I construct to myself an idea of a reader, the more obstructions arise. Am I going to be too

Mathijshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14186180865801301185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10553368.post-1108995812525413492005-02-21T06:16:00.000-08:002007-12-03T06:38:53.016-08:00

Our minds create reality. Nothing is more devestating to the individual than the frustration of this creative ability. The insidious irony of our current predicament is that so often the real possibilities our creative thoughts produce are obstructed by existing structures, systems and institutions... also created by minds. We use the creative power of mind to restrict and limit. Certainly on the

Mathijshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14186180865801301185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10553368.post-1107270144713337682005-02-01T07:01:00.000-08:002007-12-03T06:37:28.865-08:00

Today I start as a blogger. As technological innovations usher us ever forward into an uncertain future, we are more confused than ever, pursuing more meaningless passive entertainment alienated from ourselves and each other. Are you confused too? Too much used to not using your capacity to think, too much adapted to what others say about the world? Is your mind atrophying like so many others?

Mathijshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14186180865801301185noreply@blogger.com1