On Friday with the Asian Philosophy class, I was discussing apocalyptic Buddhists, such as the followers of Shoko Asahara who attacked Japanese subway passengers with poison gas in an attempt to bring about the apocalypse. I have a friend who repeatedly mentions that some individuals in Israel have been trying to breed an all red calf for just the same reason in accord with the Book of Revelation. It later dawned on me that, whether or not we believe in religious prophecy or the apocalypse, that the dream in the Book of Revelation may simply be revealing a possibility, and not a certainty. It could be argued that the dream is a warning of what may happen, but need not, if we clean up our act. Perhaps those who wish to bring about the apocalypse and those who think it is an inevitability should be presented with this possibility.
The Journal of the Philosophical Society of England just posted an article I wrote for them about Wittgenstein and the work of Lewis Carroll, one of my favorite subjects. Here is the link:
I had the good fortune of traveling to Edinburgh, Scotland recently, and while I was there I decided to track down the grave of one of my favorite modern European philosophers, David Hume. I learned that his grave was located on Calton Hill, near the end of the Royal Mile and Scottish Parliament. Even so, I had a bit of an adventure trying to find it. At first, I thought it was somewhere in the Canongate Church graveyard, but failing to find it there I wandered down the rest of the Royal Mile to the cemetery that I could see was on the side of Calton Hill. I saw a circular tower that was a possible candidate.
Yet as I walked up through the cemetery I found that Hume’s grave was not there, though there is a stunning view of Arthur’s Seat, an outcrop of rock that shot out of the side of a volcano long ago.
I decided to walk the rest of the way up Calton Hill, which had beautiful views of the city.
As I rounded the hill, I spotted a cemetery that I had missed, tucked away down the hill.
I ran down the hill and the stairs to Princes Street, and found the gate to the Old Calton Cemetery. I was greeted by a plaque that told me it was here!
There, next to a monument to Abraham Lincoln and the Scottish soldiers who lost their lives in the American Civil War, was Hume’s mausoleum.
Here is a map showing the site of the grave:
The next morning, I decided to walk back to the grave and hill before I left Edinburgh on my travels. As I walked back up the Royal Mile from North Bridge, I found that some drunken Saturday night reveler had placed a cone atop Hume’s skeptical head. I would like to think he would have appreciated the joke.
Here is Herr Wittgenstein as an infant, adjusting to our complex forms of life.
I imagine it shows a family resemblance.
Here he is on a rocking horse:
Thought Itself 