Like the Neo-Kantians Said (Somewhat Predictably): "Back to Kant!"

I'm reading my Critique of Pure Reason again, and over the past four days, I've read about forty pp., to the point at which I'm almost out of the entangling thickets of the Transcendental Analytic (whoopee!).  I recall blogging here sometime last year about my accomplishment of pulling an all-nighter to complete the Transcendental Deduction (part of the Trans. Analytic; the main thrust of which I can't recall at this point without looking at the text, but who cares? it has nothing to do with my eventual Kant Seminar research paper topic) and enjoying a cigar afterward, so I may end up celebrating a similar ritual tonight--I only have about seven pages left to go.  Once I'm in the Transcendental Dialectic, it should be (relatively) smooth reading from there on out; Kant's dense exposition of his metaphysical and epistemological framework is confined to roughly the first third of the work--the rest is mostly his application thereof--and I'm past the 40% mark (yes, I do compute these things; it keeps me sane when reading a book as lengthy and difficult as this one).

I'm motivated to delve into it again, partly because none of my classes right now are stimulating me intellectually, partly because I want to clean up my USF transcript before applying to wherever this spring (I don't expect to have all of my incompletes finished by then, but two, maybe three fewer would make things look considerably better), and partly because I've held off from beginning any other major philosophy works before I get the first Critique out of the way, and I've been dying to get into Kierkegaard, Locke, Hume, Popper, or Santayana.  I'm not unmindful of the possibility of returning to grad school at some point soon, either; with my credit card debt paid off, I could actually meet my monthly expenses on a teaching assistant's paycheck once again, and that was really more of a hindrance from me pursuing my studies further than my raft of incompletes was.

Mom and I took Katie to the vet yesterday for evaluation to have the growth on her head surgically removed.  Before that operation is even possible, we have to treat bad infections she has in each of her ears, so the two of us attempt to administer six drops of medicine into each ear, twice a day.  It's my job to wrap Katie in a towel and try keeping her immobile, and Mom does the rest, but it's doubtful that we manage to get a full six drops into either ear any time we try this routine; even at her advanced age, she puts up quite a struggle.  As Katie is seventeen now, has a Stage 3 heart murmur, and her kidneys aren't working as well as they should, the vet will perform blood work to gauge the strength of Katie's system to safely process the anaesthetic before we decide whether or not to risk the operation (the surgery itself should be fairly simple, the vet told us; the growth is restricted to the surface of her skin--the question is really whether or not Katie would survive anaesthesia).  We'll take her back to the vet's office in about two weeks, to see whether the ear infections have cleared up.  The estimates on the surgery itself range from about $320-$485.  

I made the mistake of teaching Mom how to play Phase 10 Friday night.  Tonight was our second game, and she edged me out in a close match.  I also finished reading Balthazar this morning and began Mountolive, and this past weekend I completed watching Show Boat, as well as Fiddler on the Roof, The Goodbye Girl, Smiles of a Summer Night, and The Sheik over the past week.

Woudl anyone that reads this blog please leave a comment, any comment?  I'd really like to get the comments left over from this spring's flame war off the page, but I'd rather not have to delete them if I can help it.  Thanks!

Posted by: pete on 9/10/2007 2:22:42 AM , 4 comments