Ruminations: September 2023

Just had another essay published with Epoche, this time on Habermas' discourse ethics. Enjoy:

On the Validity of Normative Life: Habermas' Discourse Ethics

https://epochemagazine.org/64/on-the-validity-of-normative-life-habermas-discourse-ethics/

To The Reader

Reader, thou hast here an honest blog; it doth at the outset forewarn thee that, in contriving the same, I have proposed to myself no other than a domestic and private end: I have had no consideration at all either to thy service or to my glory. My powers are not capable of any such design. I have dedicated it to the particular commodity of my kinsfolk and friends, so that, having lost me (which they must do shortly), they may therein recover some traits of my conditions and humours, and by that means preserve more whole, and more life-like, the knowledge they had of me...I desire therein to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary manner, without study and artifice: for it is myself I paint. My defects are therein to be read to the life, and any imperfections are my natural form, so far as public reverence hath permitted me.

Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my book: there’s no reason thou shouldst employ thy leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject.

Therefore, farewell.

- [Rowan] De [Anderson], "To the reader"

Ruminations

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

On The Validity of Normative Life