Book Notes: All Things Shining - Moods

Homer invokes the gods in order to account for the observation that a central form of human excellence must be drawn from without. A god, in Homer's terminology, is a mood that attunes us to what matters most in a situation, allowing us to respond appropriately without thinking.

Dreyfus and Kelly argue that a "polytheistic" way of framing our existence was present during Homeric Greece and was lost for a couple of thousand years. Melville, writing in the early 1850s, begins to revive this mindset in Moby Dick.

In a disenchanted, secular world, how do we build a foundation for leading our lives? I am not sure how satisfied I am with a paradigm that establishes moods as a foundation for determining the best course of action. I suppose Heidegger might argue that I am approaching this too deliberatively, rather than letting the appropriateness of the moment dictate the "determination". This does seem so slippery that a wide range of actions can be explained and justified as appropriate to a certain mood that prevailed at a particular time with a particular actor (or set of actors). The idea of being prepared and then receptive to the demands of a given situation does strike me as a reasonable aspiration. But receptivity does imply a passivity that is quite counter to the culture that dominates today. Don't we value action, decisions, progress toward a goal? To what extent do we drive our environment in a direction and to what extent are we driven?

Basel Bound

On Friday, I received an offer to take a position in Basel, Switzerland for Roche. After being away from Europe for 20 years, Nancy and I will be returning for an extended adventure in the land of chocolate, cheese, and cuckoo clocks. We have many questions and some concerns, but we are very excited to transition into a new world with our family. What follows are a few of my hopes for our time in Switzerland:

• I hope that the children will warm to the place, and that the opportunities to experience Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy will spark a sense of curiousity and wonder about the languages and cultures that they will be seeing.


• I hope that we will have the resources and time to explore the new world, to understand more about that world, and appreciate the ideas and practices that help to shape the world.


• I hope that we can all learn German quickly so that we can get closer to the allegedly closed and cold Swiss.

I ordered an intellectual/cultural history titled Basel in the Age of Burckhardt by Lionel Gossman. The city has a rich cultural history, attracting some of the brighter lights of Europe over the last several centuries. I am so excited to be there!