How about Dinggedicht (German: "thing-poem") http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/5113/Dinggedicht.html ) examples by Rilke The Panther His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. It seems to him there are a thousand bars; and...

Here is a brief (ish) site page that talks about the poem and its context. The original source is The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics . http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/5098/Dactylo-Epitrite.html The poet of this little piece is the surrealist Andre Breton. It is used in...

Drop everything drop dada drop your wife drop your mistress drop your homes and fears sew your children in the corner of the woods drop the prey for the shadow, drop if necessary the easy life what is presumed to be a life with a promising future Get on the road. Lachez tout Les Perdus Gallimand (19...

Last Orders by Graham Swift “On a bleak spring day, four men meet in their favorite pub in a working-class London neighborhood. They are about to begin a pilgrimage to scatter the ashes of a fifth man, Jack Dodds, friend since WWII of three of them, adoptive father to the fourth. By the time they r...

Rational Mysticism by John Horgan “In Rational Mysticism, acclaimed journalist John Horgan embarks on an adventure of discovery, investigating the ways in which scientists, theologians, and philosophers are attempting to formulate an empirical explanation of spiritual enlightenment. Horgan visits a...

I believe Heidegger referred to such subtleties as 'aletheia'. They are the transcendental features of experience that Thoreau referred to. I have found them almost impossible to point to. I always think of aletheia as not-forgetting because of the River Lethe. So this kind of truth is different fr...

Here are a couple of links that are worth looking at with respect to Europe vs America and belief. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=982 Here's a wider ranging Gallup poll on US values... http://www.pollin...

And yet, the ephemeral, the passing, stands in contradiction to the permanent, the eternal. Poetry points to the eternal, and this is a key difference between Heidegger and Sartre, with their contrasting views on essence and existence. Part of my dissatisfaction with some modern French philosophy c...

People do respond to Plato differently. I totally agree with you that is important to actually read Plato before coming to a conclusion about what he means to the Western canon. So of course I have read him, as well as various thinkers' responses to him both for and against. He does have important t...

It is rather like Colin in The Secret Garden , who has been told that he is a cripple so he believes it. Believing otherwise, after Mary finds the key to unlock the garden door, gives him the power to transform his potential. I haven't read The Secret Garden for years so I am not going to comment o...