ABSTRACT

These essays, written in the spirit of Goethe’s Epimetheus who "traces the quick deed to the dim realm of form-combining possibilities", display the depth and breadth of Tallis’s fascination with our lives. Whether discussing philosophical "hardy perennials" like time, or a mundane artefact like ink, Tallis challenges us to think differently about who we are and why we are.

The first part of the book – Analysis – dives into the deep-end to explore some of the big questions in philosophy: perception, knowledge and belief; time; the relationship between mathematics and reality; and probability and causation. The middle section – Tetchy Interludes – takes a wry look at some aspects of contemporary art; stupidity (including the author’s own); and Christmas. The third part – Celebration – is more experimental in both its subject matter and treatment. It celebrates the complexity of ordinary, everyday consciousness by contemplating the miracle of speech, artefacts that have transformed our lives (and what they reveal about our cognition) such as the wheel, the sail, and ink; and ‘snapshots’ of the author’s own consciousness on an ordinary day, of past consciousness, as captured in historical memory.

Notwithstanding their diversity in theme and style, these essays share the common aim of discovering and celebrating the submerged riches in the "quick deeds" of our everyday lives and perceptions.

part |117 pages

Analyses

chapter |8 pages

Seeing and Believing

chapter |7 pages

Where Is that Itch?

Philosophy from Scratch

chapter |6 pages

Draining the River and Quivering the Arrow

Against the “Flow” and “Direction” of Time

chapter |17 pages

Mistaking Mathematics for Reality

Where Zeno Went Wrong and So Many Followed

chapter |36 pages

Causes as (Local) Oomph

part |64 pages

Tetchy Interludes

chapter |10 pages

The Shocking Yawn

Art up its Ars

chapter |16 pages

Mission Drift

part |113 pages

Celebrations

chapter |6 pages

Anteroom

On Waiting (Queuing and Milling)

chapter |6 pages

Words

Naming Airy Nothings

chapter |12 pages

Voices

chapter |12 pages

Two Fragments of Sculpted Air

Aaarh and Oops!

chapter |3 pages

Lexical Snacks

chapter |2 pages

The Librarian's Voice

chapter |11 pages

Reimagining the Wheel

chapter |9 pages

Sail

Of Trades and Winds

chapter |4 pages

Mad Artefacts

chapter |13 pages

A Can of Beans

chapter |3 pages

Coda: Ink

The Artefact of Artefacts