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The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





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Thursday, March 15, 2012

A PAUSE TO REFRESH

I have been blogging regularly for four years now, posting almost a comment a day, starting before I retired from the University of Massachusetts.  Two years ago, in 2010, I wrote and posted daily a Memoir that filled three volumes and ran to almost eight hundred manuscript pages.  While writing that memoir, I also wrote and posted, on a different blog, a book length introduction to the use of formal mathematical methods in political philosophy.  My memoir was followed by a series of lengthy tutorials on a wide array of topics:  The Thought of Karl Marx, the Thought of Sigmund Freud, Ideological Critique, How to Study Society, An Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, and The Philosophy of David Hume.  Having run out of topics for tutorials, I undertook a number of mini-tutorials and after that a series of Appreciations.  Taking all in all, I have poured out perhaps five hundred thousand words, not counting the many, many commentaries on the passing scene that are more typical of blogs.

The response has been extremely gratifying.  Though I have not ascended into the empyrean reaches of Lady Gaga [who scores twice as many Google hits as Jesus Christ], nor even achieved the internet fame of an Andrew Sullivan or a Josh Marshall, I have been blessed with an unusually intelligent and learned coterie of readers, whose comments have been knowledgeable, pertinent, and interesting.

But I am beginning to suspect that there are limits to the number of topics on which I can blog with even a simulacrum of competence, so I hope you will not take it amiss if I post a tad less often.  I will, of course, continue to react to the more egregious absurdities of our politics, and I am always open to requests and suggestions.  Perhaps I ought to read a book, as a way of recharging my batteries.  [At the moment, I am making my way through George Dyson's new work, Turing's Castle, by George Dyson, the son of Freeman Dyson.  It is a very odd book, apparently about the invention of the computer.]

5 comments:

JCE said...

jesus christ, how do you write so much so fast?!

Robert Paul Wolff said...

It is easier if you don't think. :)

Bjorn said...

"I suspect that there are limits to the number of topics on which I can blog with even a simulacrum of competence."

I don't think there is any such limit. Like me, you're a philosopher, and thus professionally trained to think well and rigorously about all things -- any things!

Even assuming that you exhaust everything you presently know, there would still be a continuing stream of new things for you to blog about as long as you continue to absorb at least *some* new information on a regular basis. :)

Robert Paul Wolff said...

I take it you do not subscribe to the law of diminishing returns. :)

JP said...

Please do post any interesting thought, reminiscence or observation about anything whatsoever. Reading your blog has become a part of my day that I really enjoy.