The Logic of Long Distance

The question "what is philosophy?" is perhaps most expressive of the temperament and ambitions of philosophers. We are simultaneously proud of our ability to ask this question and ashamed that we have to ask it. We are proud of the question because it shows that we take critical inquiry so seriously that we apply it even to the very task of critical inquiry. And we are ashamed of the question because it implies that we don't really know what the heck we are doing, that philosophy is simply an expression of confusion. Which, of course, it is. Like most questions, this one has many different answers. Speaking personally, I love reading and engaging in philosophy because it gives me a chance to think newly and differently. So, I tend to think of the task of philosophy as primarily imaginative and speculative. My favorite philosophers challenge ordinary ways of seeing, and give us new ways of approaching problems. This has probably been apparent in my writings on this blog....

One role that philosophers play is we take ways of thinking and we amplify them, codify them, play with them, tweak them, and follow them to their (often absurd) conclusions. One of my grad school professors used to joke that he would tell people that he was a "conceptual engineer" by trade so that people (or at least the women he was trying to pick up) would take him more seriously. It wasn't really a lie: that's part of what we do. We tinker with ways of thinking in order to try to improve them. This is one reason why philosophers always behave so strangely. It's because by long practice we have learned a habit of disassociating ourselves from our thoughts. The more native and natural way to think of ideas is that they are personal--you yourself have them. Common sense talks about our opinions and reasons as if they are our own, and we get emotionally attached to our ideas. An attack on our way of thinking is an attack on us. Philosophers, though, see opinio...

One of my goals for 2012 is to continue posting weekly on the blog. Of course, it's been three weeks since my last post and more than a week since the beginning of the new year. So, I've already failed. Now that I've gotten that resolution out of the way, I can go ahead and write a post. *  *  * The trend this year in discussing New Year's Resolutions is to downplay the role of willpower in the construction of resolve and to emphasize the more complex aspects of achievement. A few   articles (I could have chosen others) are representative of this trend. "The Fat Trap" by Tara Parker-Pope discusses the physiology behind the difficulty of losing weight, constructing the picture of weight-loss as a complex matter of personal history, epigenetics, hormones, and metabolism rather than a simple question of having the will to stick to a diet. "Be It Resolved" by science writer John Tierney looks more directly (and a bit more simply) at the actual e...

Good runs happen when you least expect them, and sometimes when you most need them. Tonight was a good one. Lately I have been feeling knotted up in my running. My body seems to be working at cross-purposes, the muscles creaking, inflexible, and out of order. I can sense strength beneath all the struggle, but it rarely shows itself. My psyche gets like this, too, its different parts at war with itself. So much energy is wasted on unseen and absurd battles, inchoate and internal strife. The incredible thing about a great run is that the body simply loosens up and begins to go. The feeling is effortless because there is no internal resistance. These are the moments in which we feel as if we are born to run. What we mean by this is simply that running can be a state in which living is not a chore or a task, but simply a happening. Instead of fighting against life, we are born into it and "borne" by it, floating upon it. Experience responds to effort in harmony, as in a song....

I dedicate this blog post to all running buddies, near and far. Training partners are a special commodity. I've run with hundreds of people in my life. People faster than I am. People slower than I am. People who don't even consider themselves runners. With strangers too. I'm a runner, and so it's just natural that I end up running with other folks. But out of those hundreds of people there are a handful that I would call running buddies. You runners out there know just how hard it is to find that guy or girl that you just click with. There are so many things that can go wrong, that it's the rarest of things to actually find someone to train with who suits your temperament. Most runners fall into at least one of the following categories, making them more or less unsuitable for that special "running buddy" designation. [F-bomb alert for sensitive readers.] 1. Half steppers. You know who you are. Or probably, you don't, or you would knock that...