The Edge of Philosophy in the Midst of Thought

By Melvyn Leibowitz Ph.D.

Melvyn Leibowitz, Ph.D., author of The Edge of Philosophy in the Midst of Thought, has more than fifty years experience doing speculative philosophy. The book is a ruminative, deconstructive, concept-exploding, non-academic, almost poetic, at points modernist, at others, post-modern work. While it may be regarded as philosophic memoir, there is not much biographical content, but rather it has to do with mind and body, consciousness, history and thought. In its 107 entries can be found such items as: If infinity is endless; does it have a beginning? (78); Is it harder to argue that the universe does not exist than to argue that God does not exist? (79); Is the sky one? (94); Philosophy without language (82); Is nature performing arithmetic? (84); What can count as no information? (98); If economics were a full science, could a dollar value be placed on the universe? (103); What if biology were one of the humanities? (68); What if guilt and punishment were to flow backwards? (101); Is there a noble reason for wanting to live indefinitely? (96)

Influences and perhaps similarities would include William Poundstone, Ottessa Moshfegh, William James, Georg Wilhelm Hegel, and Billy Collins.

From 1960 to 1980 there were Richard Feynmann and Bob Dylan. This might be the most luminous work of the last forty years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781665507530

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© 2020 Melvyn Leibowitz, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   11/16/2020

ISBN: 978-1-6655-0750-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-0753-0 (e)

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Foreword

What These Are, Or Might Be

These that follow are entries in a notebook I have been keeping now for more than forty years. They are insights and ideas that came, or still come to me, and that I would enter in my notebook. These are primarily, but not exclusively, philosophical or philosophically inspired or related ideas. They are, or tend to be, as insights, more or less sudden glints or understandings, individual and incisive and inspirationally engendered, rather than systematic and planned.

I note these ideas and insights, writing them as and when they came, and with little if any further elaboration, embellishment or unpacking. Moreover, in presenting them here, in this format, they are closely drawn from my notebook, appearing here almost entirely as they are there.

I intended after writing them in the notebook, to expand and further elaborate them. They could have been developed as multi-paragraphed articles, papers, essays, or even books.

But they were not. Instead, they appear here in their original length and form.

So, what might be made of them?

Some were fully realized as insights, and others, fewer, were incompletely grasped. Or, there may be a kind of continuum, with some of these insights having been less than fully grasped, not to mention expressed, and others more fully grasped. Then there is also the consideration of time. When I wrote them—over the forty year period––I may have firmly grasped what I meant or, alternatively, wanted further to add, and, over time, this clarity or grasp could have become muted, or changed.

Then, in addition to these, there is the very important and multi-faceted factor of you and me, reader and writer. What these are or may be or mean to me, may be different from you. But beyond their terse format allowing for and fostering it, I would invite your, the reader’s, construing them as you will, even though they come from me. We each, then, may here unpack or make of them as we will do. What results is what they might be.

Furthermore, although these were written serially, one at a time, I see there are distinct themes that run throughout them. Not only may these motifs in themselves be significant, also there is a development that occurs in each of them that might too have significance.

Moreover, though I will here not try to descry the significance of these that follow, I will say that some ideas occurred to me about what these might be as significant as. Thus, I broach that these items that follow may have an import amount or weight comparable to the tune, Don’t Fence Me In––thinking of the Bing Crosby and Andrews Sisters recording here––at a lower level, and of the incidentally happy-sounding, but doleful, You Are My Sunshine, not specifying here a recording, at an upper level; of Bob Dylan’s neglected, Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word, at a lower level,