The Spiritual Advice of Hard-Living Philosophers

Life among hard-living philosophers makes it difficult for me to post . The seminar at Brown yesterday afternoon; then a coffee and quick snack before the lecture, which ended at 9:30; then a dinner party lasting to midnight. It wasn't until 2 am that I got home. Then teaching all day today, but, because it's the last day of classes, a colleague has just come around with wine and cigars...and that's before a promised dinner out with my wife....

Yet there's much to post. Johansen's seminar and lecture were superb; Kosman's commentary was fascinating. In developing his own view, Johansen raised what seemed to me serious objections to Victor Caston's paper, "Aristotle on Consciousness", which I want to think carefully about, returning to Caston's paper. Then too I want to reply to Sean Kelsey's interesting thoughts on 'approximation'.

But that will have to wait until tomorrow. For now, I should follow, rather, some 'spiritual advice' given to me yesterday.

When I was leaving the dinner party last night with a colleague, I joked with Aryeh Kosman about wanting to pick up some cigars for the ride home. Aryeh grabbed my arm and said, smiling, "Oh no, save the cigars for tomorrow. Get some good cheese, some wine, and--I'm telling this to you as spiritual advice--then smoke those cigars."

I couldn't of course ignore spiritual advice like that, offered in true wisdom and with genuine goodwill!