Not really on the syllabus at my one-man university.

"The true university of these days is a collection of books." - Thomas Carlyle


And generally I don't really have the following authors in my library, or on my reading lists.

They are not really on the syllabus at my one-man university:

Sigmund FREUD.

No facts. Only theory posing as fact. No science. No discovery. Irrationalist posing as rational.

Friedrich NIETZSCHE.

All gesture and no content. Precursor of fascism. Irrationalist.

Oscar WILDE.

Unconvincing intellectual justification for homosexual behaviour. No content to his literature. Disagree profoundly with his beliefs about "art for art's sake" and other matters. Irrationalist.

James JOYCE.

Simply incomprehensible. And truly and utterly tedious. Even the more readable and accessible works are utterly tedious. It is said of "Ulysses" that if it is not worth reading, then life is not worth living. I maintain that it cannot really be read, whereas life can be lived.

Michel FOUCAULT.

Random and fake. Incomprehensible in places. No evidence for his theories. Irrationalist.

J. R. R. TOLKIEN

Too divorced from the real world.

C. S. LEWIS

Overall, a very over-rated Christian apologist.

G.W.F. HEGEL

Irrational, incomprehensible.

Jacques LACAN

Slavoj ZIZEK

 Peter SINGER

Animals are not our equals - for that is why they are animals.

Henry JAMES.


G.K. CHESTERTON.

George BERKELEY.

Mischievous, deceitful and irrational.


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Generally speaking, I believe that the overall content and messages of the above writers are not worthy of serious intellectual consideration and that their reputations are wholly undeserved. Some parts of their writings may be beneficial and enlightening, but overall I think all of these writers are intellectually overrated.

On being thoroughly disillusioned with learning other languages.

On being thoroughly disillusioned with learning other languages.

"No man fully capable of his own language ever masters another." George Bernard Shaw.

I am thoroughly disillusioned and disenchanted with learning other languages and I no longer believe that it is possible, desirable or beneficial to fully learn more than one language - one's own mother tongue.

The G.B.S. quote shown above that I have long been aware of I now concede to be entirely true.
My own experience and observation of others leads me to believe that it is very much the truth.

I confess that I have a Modern Languages degree, which I received about 18 years ago. I now regard this as having been essentially a mistake and - in terms of studying the actual languages - a wasted degree. I would much rather have studied philosophy.

Mastering a language other than one's principle language is not even possible. But maintaining such a second language at merely a high level of proficiency requires exceptional circumstances. These are either to live in the country where it is spoken, or to have been a native speaker in the first place or have been brought up bilingually.

Even this is very difficult and rare. But another point is that it is not really necessary or desirable.
And this is nothing to do with my own language being English - which is effectively the most dominant language in the world today.

Now that I have fully conceded this point to myself, I feel set free to actually study proper subjects and to properly learn philosophy and to philosophize, without wasting my time and effort with the fantasy that I can effectively learn other languages or that I need to.

This is the source of a great feeling of self-liberation from a tyrannical belief of my own that I had imposed upon myself - the belief being that I had to thoroughly learn other languages.

I am also thoroughly liberated from the irrational belief that a language is something other than a method of communication, that learning another language gives the learner something more than just another means of saying the same thing!

A bi-product of learning a language can be cultural insights but all of these can be gained entirely by means other than learning of the language. Language itself is indeed nothing more than a means of communication.

On "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Hariri

On "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Hariri (2016).

I find myself in disagreement with a few things in this unconventional book on the history of humanity:

- promotion of animal rights.
- promotion of homosexual behaviour and his advocacy of homosexual rights - and his presentation of such behaviour as in some way natural and wholly acceptable.
- apparent belief that mankind is possibly heading for some kind of eternal life.
- belief in the inevitability of a coming era of massive scientific discovery and progress.
- promotion of neuroscience and psychiatry.
- excessive promotion of Buddhism.
- portrayal of communism and other ideologies as being "just other religions".
- belief in conventional economics and in "economic growth" as unlimited.

Apart from the disagreements, I think that this is an excellent and thought-provoking book and I am now greatly enjoying the sequel "Homo Deus".

Typical John Gray bullshit

"There is no basis – whether in logic or history – for the prevailing notion that atheism and liberalism go together." 

John Gray, philosopher.

If you ask me, this is typical John Gray bullshit!

He is trying to suit reality to his own pre-conceived agenda and pro-religion views.

In discussion here is this article by the philosopher John Gray : John Gray "The Ghost at the Atheist Feast."

I am an atheist. And I believe that there are many deep links - both in logic and in history - between liberalism and atheism. Furthermore, I believe it is obvious that this is the case.

Why should being an atheist mean that I have to be a fan of Nietzsche?
There is no logical or historical basis for any notion that atheism and devotion to Nietzsche go together!
I think that Nietzsche's work is mainly execrable, pompous rubbish.

I deny that Nietzsche is "the pivotal modern critic of religion", as Gray affirms in this article.
The decline of religion that he echoed was not necessarily anything to do with him and it is something that was happening anyway, as Weber has described.

John Gray is something of a pessimist who seems to believe that humans are incorrigibly religious.
Being a pessimist is pointless. Furthermore, it is simply not true that humans cannot live without a religion, depending on how one defines religion.