T’Was Ever Thus – Interesting from Seb, a reference to Richard Rorty, via Dave Weinberger, via Mitch Ratcliffe that there are very few if any new problems that previous generations have not already recognised. I’ve blogged several times “It was ever thus” and “Nothing new under the sun” over the years, most recently in connection with US Philosopher William Barrett.
Even more interestingly, Barrett makes the very point – in the concluding chapter “The Place of the Furies” of his “Irrational Man” – that recognising “it was ever thus” is itself as old as philosophy; quoting Karl Jaspers citing an anonymous 4000 year old Egyptian philosopher, and Ortega y Gasset citing the Latin poet Horace. Current issues always look more problematic than those of our ancestors, but they were always pretty much the same problems.
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