Nant, son of Nant, Mason of Krondor

For three score years and five
did Nant
tithe and tithe and tithe.
To Church and God and Priest
did Nant
tithe and tithe and tithe.
Not once in three score years
and five
did prayers yield a boon,
Not once in three score years
and five
did even fateful goddess smile,
And now that Nant's full three
score years and five
do finally come to pass, the tithing
finally ends.

found on a gravestone near a mausoleum

Moral Argument for Other Minds

        The following is a moral argument for the existence of other minds. If it is granted that we have a moral obligation to other people, then other minds must exist. Either we owe duties to our neighbors,or our moral obligations are fulfilled by our own wills. Something that must be done is either owed to someone else or ourselves. However, a person by their self cannot be the judge of their own cause, since if it is granted that a person can be a judge of their own cause, what is to keep them from willing the bad as a moral imperative? It is unacceptable that immoral imperatives should hold up. Thus, moral obligations are owed to our neighbors rather than ourselves, so that other minds exist.

fragment

        ...the rhetoric of the pursuit of virtue includes exhortations to actions that fulfill an end. On the whole, the main goal is better character to live in the world that largely shuns such actions, although this shunning could show up as avoiding. When what is absent can be seen as a clear picture of what is not deemed to be valuable...but who can assess that this is the way of those who are virtuous? The question asks in what way can you find out how these moral imperatives work by persuading people. The words themselves often are commanding moral action, which is seen to be right...

Criticism of Contempt

Perhaps the contempt that one has of things is because that they are common. But also it is because no propriety is used when they are being communicated. That is why frequent talk of base matter is particularly odious to those who must endure its expression.  The foul aftertaste of being told of mere daily activity at a bad time will leave one wanting to flee the stench for something fresh.

This can be illustrated by considering your common concerns and comparing them to how they are often expressed. Notice that the difference cannot be easily divided. We speak of things and how they are said, but here the distinction is not helpful because things and their modes of being exhibited in speech are denoted in the same way, even though things are separate from speech.

Endurance of such tendencies and refraining from offending those who must experience such a thing could be one solution. But this personal behavior will not solve the problem of why there is contempt in the first place. The effects lead the offended party to believe that the problem lies within the speech act itself rather than within them. Perhaps the problem is there.

More could be said, but it is enough to point out that contempt is a reaction to what is perceived to be contemptuous. This contempt of common speech that is without proper order signals that the offended party has imputed bad intentions to the seeming offender. Pity could combat contempt by offering the reason that the poor speakers are without just right to promote their talk.

Who Killed Homer?

    Hanson and Heath, Classicists from California, co-authored a book called 'Who Killed Homer', which was eventually published in paperback in 2001 by Encounter Books. And before that there was the hard cover version. But the paperback version has additional political intrigue within realm of academia, since these authors were not well received among their peers, due to the pointed rhetoric contained within the paperback book, which you could probably get through the online venders.

And the below outline shows some of the main points within the book:

1. Greek wisdom is not Mediterranean but anti-Mediterranean; Hellenic culture-an idea not predicated on race-is not just different from, but entirely antithetical to any civilization of its own time or space.

2. The demise of Classical learning is both real and quantifiable.

3. Our present generation of Classicists helped to destroy Classical education.

  I feel that there is no way Classical learning will be sustained within the universities of the West, in general, and in America in particular because students do not want to learn these tough languages and the literature that goes along with them. This dismissal of this ancient culture is due to, mainly, the unfamiliarity with the alphas and omegas of the ancient Greek way of writing Why promote an unfamiliar orthography?

  But further than the loss of understand languages, there is a great cultural loss also. While ISIS destroys ancient monuments, the Classicists of this generation have set fire to the manuscripts of the texts that taught a way of thinking that is largely foreign to us because they wanted to keep the loot for themselves, rather than train others to appreciate the Greek contribution to our present crumbling civilization. So if you want to know why education is in a mess right now, I'd suggest this book for your consideration.