Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Mountain philosophy


While Carolina is still on my mind, I note that William James also visited the area we've just returned from. In 1891 he climbed Mount Mitchell and called it "the most beautiful forest walk (only five hours) I ever made." Robert Richardson notes that he also climbed Roan Mountain and Grandfather Mountain, and on the same trip encountered the mountaineers who inspired his own favorite essay "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings." The moral of that story is that others see the world differently than we do, and it's ok that they do.

That's pluralism, by the way, closely related to cosmopolitanism. More on the precise nature of their relation as soon as I figure out how to say it. Or point to it.

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