The Enlightened Virtuoso

The colonial period of U.S. history contains a variety of interesting lessons. One of these pertains to the concept of a "virtuoso." The virtuoso was primarily characterized by curiosity. Rather than being overly specialized, the virtuoso explored a wide range of interests. The study of nature, art, literature, and theology all would have been pursuits common to this stereotype. This blog aspires to take this early category and use it as a point of departure for exploration and reflection.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Pascal on the Human Condition

"The knot of our condition takes its twist and turns in this abyss, so that man is more unintelligible without this mystery than this mystery is unintelligible to man."

Blaise Pascal, Pensées, ed. and trans. Roger Ariew (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2004), p. 37.

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Welcome

Dear reader,

Welcome! This blog started off as a personal project meant more for myself than anyone else. In that regard, it has served as a catalog for the resources I tend to enjoy. However, recent circumstances have changed the way I have utilized this medium. For a while I began using it as a public journal, following the example of my personal journal. While it may seem strange, I use my journals as a record of intellectual exposure and growth rather than mediums of creative outpouring. I often post quotes that I have found particularly meaningful. For me, this is a way of documenting what I have been exposed to and how my own thinking has developed. In that sense, my journaling is perhaps a bit unusual. It works for me though and I hope that it may be of interest to you as well.

To some extent, this journal is an experiment with Siegfried Kracauer's note that, "We must rid ourselves of the delusion that it is the major events which have the most decisive influence on us. We are much more deeply and continuously influenced by the tiny catastrophes that make up daily life" (Die Angestellten, in Schriften, vol. 1, 252). This blog is obviously public, yet it's not really created for anyone other than myself. If you find something that's of use or value, all the better! It does, after all, serve as one of my research resources and it may serve that purpose for you as well.

Thanks for taking the time to read what I've either recorded or written.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Pascal on the Human Condition

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