ABOVE the hills, a rising amber face Keeps quiet watch on the descending gloam. A perfect silence falls about the place; The weary workers bend their footsteps home Homewards on their paths, well-wrought, of trodden loam, That wend along through fertile fields of grain; The stalks a-bowed beneath the burthen sweet Of fruit, full-ripe by…
Author: Max Leyf
A Critique of Chris Firth’s Aeon essay “Our illusory sense of agency has a deeply important social purpose”
Chris Frith, emeritus professor of neuropsychology at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London, has recently weighed in on the perennial philosophical question of free will. One is tempted to comment on the insouciance with which contemporary scientists, on the assumption that their special expertise qualifies them for such a task, set…
Sonnet (7): Storm-Crow
High-hollow wastelands, plains, and wind-whipped heights, That howl and whisper in the raging nights Of airy voices born of forms unseen That pierce the soul like silver Highland skeans. Above the din stands Storm-crow, Lord of Light Bending elements, contending terrible might, He disputes his nemesis, Faerie-queen. And dancing through the midnight dark demesnes Heedless…
Sonnet (6): The Goldening Hour
At last, how summer’s verdant slumber-shroud Is lifting, Nature’s secret revelation A-shining forth in conflagration Bold-proclaimed, in colours loud Vermillion, orange, and gold that’s proud Exult: the season’s peroration Proclaiming Earth’s transfiguration Beneath the drifting autumn clouds, And further still to subtle vapours high To minds that span the widths of space To silent stars…
“Soul Longing”: translation of Goethe’s “Selige Sehnsucht”
Tell no one but the wise For throngs will merely scoff: I praise what is alive And what longs for death by fire. In the cool nights of love Where you get, as you were once begotten A strange feeling falls upon you As the candle, silent, gleams. Nevermore shall you be captive Amongst these…
Sonnet (5): “Grant me end-of-summer’s silken thread”
Grant me end-of-summer’s silken thread That I may take it in my careful grasp Between my fingers, its sweet strand to clasp And others gather withal this first to wed Then in carful carpet, artful spread To lay withal upon the ageing grass I’ll dream that summertime will never pass Beneath the vaulted sky above…
On Truth (5): The Redemption of Thinking
In following the silver thread of this study, we have compassed many themes including epistemology, consciousness and its evolution, the scientific method, its history and possibilities for its future development. Most fundamentally, however, our inquiry stems from the primordial impulse and Holy Grail of philosophy as, Aristotle expressed it in the first line of Metaphysics:…
On Truth (4): Scientia & Sapientia, and the Causes of Post-Truth
“What science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.” —Bertrand Russell Nihil enim scitur nisi verum, quod cum entit convertitur. “Nothing is known except truth, which is the same as being.” —Thomas Aquinas In the last chapter of this exploration, we suggested that post-truth is the same as post-meaning. In other words, the truth of things is their meaning. From this, it follows…
On Truth (3): Nietzsche, Plato, Cartesius, Kant
Both in the introduction of this theme and the introduction to the dissertation itself, we introduced the subject of truth, or lack thereof. We considered, in the former case, truth in respect to its etymological relation to “tree,” and explored the symbolic resonance between these two concepts. We concluded that, among myriad other connections that…
On Truth (2): Steiner & Barfield
The following is a draft-excerpt from a dissertation that the editor of Theoria-press is presently engaged in writing for a doctoral degree in Philosophy, Cosmology, & Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Comments welcome. The former earned his M.A. in the same program in May of 2017, of which the culminating project was this…
