Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Dec 8, 2009, 1:28 pm
I find the concepts of perception and sensation very interesting. As well as the idea that when we see or touch something, what is evident and obvious to our senses is not necessarily really the thing...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Dec 2, 2009, 11:56 am
... from wrong by punishing wrong and rewarding right. This, though, is how we run our adult societies as well. I am not so sure that we, as adults, should be rewarded or praised for simply being ......
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Nov 30, 2009, 12:59 pm
You can now subscribe to my posts via email! Just go to any page on my site and you will see “Email Subscription” at the top of the right-hand column.
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Nov 24, 2009, 12:17 pm
Thinking about Christianity. I cannot say that I disagree with all the teachings of Jesus, especially as I am not a Jesus scholar. What I can say is that I, on the whole, find the religion/institution...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Nov 17, 2009, 11:52 am
Perhaps one of the main purposes of “society” is (or, I should say, should be) to facilitate people learning/developing self-control and personal responsibility. The governments that rule ...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Nov 11, 2009, 2:34 pm
Why do we live under the assumption that we need shame, and the threat of shame, from without or within, in order to treat each other well? Why do we need shame? What real purpose does it serve, other...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Nov 3, 2009, 1:44 pm
I disagree with William James when he says that we need to look to those of our inner desires that logic cannot sway for our understanding of right and truth. It’s the word “desires”...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Oct 27, 2009, 11:47 am
One of the questions that Darwinian evolution, as well as Spencer’s and Nietzsche’s philosophies, brings up is whether the weak should be helped and coddled, or left to their own devices. ...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Oct 20, 2009, 10:39 am
What is religion but a way of grappling with the unknown? Of being able to somehow express, be a part of, that strange spirituality, that strange “something more” that we humans feel about...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Oct 13, 2009, 10:52 am
I think we now live in a time infected with irony. Is not irony saying or expressing something and not meaning it? People are almost expected to live, speak, and exude irony. That which is not ironic ...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Oct 6, 2009, 10:44 am
A problem with people is that they are never satisfied. In fact, belief in, and pursuit of, the “American Dream” only makes it worse, as we are conditioned to always want more, that more i...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Sep 29, 2009, 10:55 am
I suppose one of my questions is whether it is possible for a person to strip away the ego, to become less self-conscious and more self-aware, or if we are doomed, like Adam and Eve—that after t...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Sep 22, 2009, 11:00 am
It is hard for me to trust people’s intentions, and to believe that they would want to do something for me unselfishly. (Sadly, when it comes to most people, my cynicism here is well-founded.) It is...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Sep 15, 2009, 11:33 am
From where does this need come to be judged in the eyes of others? It is a desire for validation. And yet people crave, and think they need, validation from that which is inherently fickle and volatil...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Sep 9, 2009, 2:18 pm
The unbearable lightness of being. I do not think that we should offhandedly dismiss people who are, or at least seem, “light,” especially those who are smart. Because I think we can all l...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Sep 9, 2009, 2:07 pm
The unbearable lightness of being. I do not think that we should offhandedly dismiss people who are, or at least seem, “light,” especially those who are smart. Because I think we can all l...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Sep 1, 2009, 10:45 am
Assumptions. Most people would agree that it is wrong to assume, to make assumptions, that it makes an ass out of u and me. But what most people do not realize is that we make hundreds, if not thousan...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Aug 25, 2009, 3:40 pm
The idea that the only great or serious questions are those that a child could formulate. For these are the great unanswerable questions about ourselves and life. Milan Kundera (in The Unbearable Ligh...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Aug 19, 2009, 3:47 pm
This whole idea of public vs. private “business” is interesting (as in: “That’s none of your business.” “That’s my private business.”). To me, no good c...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Aug 12, 2009, 4:01 pm
It can be tempting to go from heavy to light in our lives, which is why most people live lightly with sprinkles of heaviness. But is heavy always negative? Is one better than the other? Is it all not ...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Aug 6, 2009, 3:44 pm
Individualism and Anonymity. See The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Kundera seems to be saying that for there to be a “brotherhood of man,” it must be based on kitsch. In other words, peop...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Jul 30, 2009, 4:55 pm
What is the basic, most fundamental illusion if not the illusion of the self? Fail to fall for, or, rather, believe in, the illusions you have of yourself, who you are, and you fail to see the world a...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Jul 24, 2009, 11:30 am
Schopenhauer is correct to link desire to suffering, but his mistake (as well as Freud’s) is to make desire synonymous with motivation (or, will), and to chain desire to happiness (as in, “...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Jul 17, 2009, 7:07 pm
Happiness is not the satisfaction of selfish desire, it is the absence of selfish desire; not the absence of will, but the absence of (selfish) desire. It is a mistake to think that one can be happy ...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Jul 10, 2009, 11:52 am
Schopenhauer seems to take the idea that “ignorance is bliss” further by contending that knowledge, or consciousness, is suffering; and the greater the knowledge, the greater the suffering...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Jul 5, 2009, 8:00 pm
The idea “know thyself” really means that the person who truly knows himself will realize that self itself is an illusion. That the self is an illusory way of experiencing reality. We cann...
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Robert Walker posted an article on Robert Walker Online - Jun 29, 2009, 12:50 pm
So, people “see something,” either literally, or figuratively. They think that the way they see it is the only real way to see it, the “true” way to see it (whether it be an &#...
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