Dear Abbie - The Non-Advice Podcast

That’s a theme of mine, though it’s easier to give the theme a name than to say exactly what it means. I can hone in on it by at least by saying what it’s not. If you claim that the world we sense, with its tables and chairs, human realms — of manners, customs, beliefs and memories — is “unreal,” then you’re NOT living in history. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn C...

So Jews and Christmas? What do I think of it all? Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks .  Dr. Rosenthal writes a weekly column for “ Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column ,”  where she explores the s...

One time, in my riding days in Downeast Maine, I went trotting up and down the neighborhood of Back Bay Road in search of the people who owned our right-of-way and shore strip. I needed to find them because it was time to sell the house I had inherited. Among the many bequests of Unfinished Business left me by my parents was the discovery – at the moment I needed to sell the house — that they had...

It seemed to me that, if I were to get to real thankfulness, a kind of archeological dig would be needed, digging down to some original layer of self. . . Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks . ...

Over the four-day period of our trip, while attending to one task or another, a number of people we encountered talked about how kids nowadays lack RE-SPECT. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks...

Quoted in full, Rabbi Hillel’s famous saying goes like this: If I am not for myself, who will be? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobook...

Slander is always believed.    Even more so if it’s in print. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks .  Dr. Rosenthal writes a weekly column for “ Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column ,”  where she ex...

Reality or unreality? Can we tell which is which?  When does it matter? Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks .  Dr. Rosenthal writes a weekly column for “ Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column ,”  wh...

When does the bugle blow? What’s the signal for the fight? I can’t give a rule. But there are fights that have one’s name on them. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks .  Dr. Rosenthal writes a w...

What’s this got to do with “home”? Is “home” a place? Is it the earthly Jerusalem? Or is it a heavenly Jerusalem, more like a state of mind? Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks .  Dr. Rosenthal...

What’s a person? Am I a person? All the time? Is God? What’s going on when people say yes or no to questions like that? Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks .  Dr. Rosenthal writes a weekly colum...

There is a French post-modern philosopher who writes, “I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.” By that is meant, there is no large story – no history of humanity as such – into which our private stories, the novellas and anecdotes that make up our lives, can fit. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is...

If you’re anything like me, unhappiness is doled out in measures of vulnerability. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks .  Dr. Rosenthal writes a weekly column for “ Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Co...

This is the season of deck-swabbing and deck-clearing, if you are Jewish. I tend to say that, at best, I am “Jewish in the head.” By that I mean: having tried a wide range of belief systems, I came at length to notice that there is more about the way I think that’s Jewish than there is, say, Christian, Lakota, or Hindu about my thinking process. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philoso...

Nobody wants to think of herself as a whining, sniveling, cowering coward. At the same time, one of the advantages of the female sex is that (forgive me, sisterhood!) we are not expected to wear such courage as we may have on our sleeves. Earning the red badge of courage — to borrow the title from Stephen Crane — is not a rite of passage to womanhood, in any culture of which I know. Abigail L. Ros...

In my teen years, I used often to thumb through a book my parents owned — a collection of one-page essays about holy persons, East and West, who had managed to attain oneness with God.   I forget the cast of characters now, but their experiences had lifted each man and woman far above the currents of ordinary existence.

First, about this Political Correctness mania. It is starting to act like a cumulonimbus cloud, soaked in its own heavy humidity, making us land dwellers underneath feel sluggish and anxiety-ridden. . . Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in...

This is one I keep revisiting. But friendship is one of life’s prime supports – almost the axis on which the whole thing turns – so one post hardly exhausts the subject. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as...

I pay great mind to words and the power of words. Therefore I have to care when words believed by the speaker to be true are spoken in honesty and then dishonestly stigmatized with a view to pushing the speaker out of the realm of discourse. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pu...

My father, the late Henry M. Rosenthal , was the antithesis of a worldly man. “He never made a useful friend,” as someone said who was well placed to know. Speaking at his memorial service, a college classmate recalled, “We all made compromises. Henry never did.” Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Go...

We met again with the small group of Quakers that’s been holding anti-Israel placards in the town square once a week all year. . . Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks .  Dr. Rosenthal writes a w...

My book tells the story of a young woman philosopher looking for truth and prepared to pay in the coin of her future for what is found or lost. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks .  Dr. Rosenth...

Why do I think cynicism a state of mind to be feared ? Especially since it’s pretty widespread and most people think it’s fairly normal. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks .  Dr. Rosenthal writ...

For Sartre, we have here an object lesson in “bad faith,” mauvaise foi . What would good faith look like? Women all over the world wanted to know. Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an expanded second edition and as audiobooks .  Dr. Rose...

Rene Descartes, the reputed “founder of modern philosophy,” held that the most important thing in life and thought – the thing without which nothing of significance can happen – is to have a method . Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita of Philosophy, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.  She is the author of A Good Look at Evil , a Pulitzer Prize nominee, now appearing in an...