Plasticity of the Present Moment, Marcus Aurelius
Oh, how grateful I am!!! The paper on the plasticity of and how to live the present moment in Marcus Aurelius' Meditations got accepted! There is still some work to do, of course, as ever in writing. The peer-review process proves to be an adventurous wandering (or in one word and without additional drama, πορεία) of wonderful dialogue and a stimulating learning experience once again. This paper is very precious to me, for Stoic metaphysics and ethics of time and beyond, and will be devoted to Malcolm Schofield and his gem on "the Retrenchable Present Moment" in early Stoics, as it suits.
When gifts are given in an unexpected moment, one starts thinking anew about giving presents and being given presents. Doesn't it always happen like that with the real gifts that never emerge in archaic relationships of "giving and taking" of any sort?
First things first: the paper on Plato's argument in Phil. 20-22 needs to be completed; otherwise, we will go through a hiccup of pleasure instead of a continuous one. And who but Philebus goes for episodes of pleasures and episodic eruption of sentences here and there, sentenced to his atomic privacy as he is?! We are chatting about the Philebus in this term in the upper-level seminar (to be followed by the Protagoras and the Gorgias). Ben got into the facticity and factivity of pleasure and we started touching upon installing propositional pleasures in the present moment and painting living paintings and directing films...Jon came up with nothing less than my research position (in earlier and forthcoming papers and in my current book-in-progress) about the dependence of pleasures on the relationship to pain. I do not know whether it is true that we create and are responsible for our dreams, as Freud thought, but I think that this is not a dream and, for sure, I am not responsible for this, plus I love it without any doubt: this in itself and not being responsible for this! Next session: pure pleasures are no atoms but presents. During the authentic chats we had, I realized that the most important things about pure pleasures have not been published so far.
The last days we have been feeling like our lovely friends in the North that I had the delight to visit in November. Minus 40 with the windchill...
But who cares about the weather? My best student ever so far, Ben Laskey, just got accepted by Cambridge University for the M.A. in (ancient) philosophy. As for my extraordinary Emily, Emily Breach, she was accepted by Queens (Kingston) for graduate studies that will focus on Plato. Congratulations and celebration of presents.
When gifts are given in an unexpected moment, one starts thinking anew about giving presents and being given presents. Doesn't it always happen like that with the real gifts that never emerge in archaic relationships of "giving and taking" of any sort?
First things first: the paper on Plato's argument in Phil. 20-22 needs to be completed; otherwise, we will go through a hiccup of pleasure instead of a continuous one. And who but Philebus goes for episodes of pleasures and episodic eruption of sentences here and there, sentenced to his atomic privacy as he is?! We are chatting about the Philebus in this term in the upper-level seminar (to be followed by the Protagoras and the Gorgias). Ben got into the facticity and factivity of pleasure and we started touching upon installing propositional pleasures in the present moment and painting living paintings and directing films...Jon came up with nothing less than my research position (in earlier and forthcoming papers and in my current book-in-progress) about the dependence of pleasures on the relationship to pain. I do not know whether it is true that we create and are responsible for our dreams, as Freud thought, but I think that this is not a dream and, for sure, I am not responsible for this, plus I love it without any doubt: this in itself and not being responsible for this! Next session: pure pleasures are no atoms but presents. During the authentic chats we had, I realized that the most important things about pure pleasures have not been published so far.
The last days we have been feeling like our lovely friends in the North that I had the delight to visit in November. Minus 40 with the windchill...
But who cares about the weather? My best student ever so far, Ben Laskey, just got accepted by Cambridge University for the M.A. in (ancient) philosophy. As for my extraordinary Emily, Emily Breach, she was accepted by Queens (Kingston) for graduate studies that will focus on Plato. Congratulations and celebration of presents.
Photo of this fair lady by my fellow traveller, Dan Wright
posted by Georgia Mouroutsou | 11:59 pm
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