'What effect has philosophy today exerted on philosophers?—They live just like all other scholars, even like politicians. They are not distinguished by any set of customs. They live for money. The five thinkers of the Augsburger Allgemeine. Just look at the lives of their highest specimens, Kant and Schopenhauer—are those the lives of wise men? It remains scholarship: they relate to their work as do performers, hence in Schopenhauer's case the desire for success. It is comfortable to be a philosopher: for no one makes demands of them. The first night of Diogenes. Socrates would demand that one bring philosophy back down to the level of human beings; either there is no popular philosophy, or only a very bad popular philosophy. What noticeable effect has philosophy had among the disciples of the philosophers, I mean educated peoples? We lack the best matter for conversation, a more refined ethics. Rameau's Nephew.'

Taskers

Sympathetic everymen

'… writing requires maximum ambition, maximum audacity, and programmatic disobedience.'

'… Fish has stayed true to their core belief in the value of academic professionalism: the value, that is, of refusing to justify the value of what you do.'

'Their view of the world around them is a deeply lonely one.'

'Of course. Money, money. Money is all, and the rest, without money, is nothing. And that is why, instead of stuffing his head with fine maxims that he would have to forget or else beg for bread, when I possess a louis, which isn't often, I take up my stand in front of him. I take the coin out of my pocket. I show it him with admiration. I roll my eyes to heaven. I kiss the louis in front of him. And to make him appreciate still more the importance of the sacred coin, I stammer out the names and point out with my finger all the things you can acquire with it—a child's frock, a nice bonnet, a lovely biscuit. Then I put the coin back into my pocket. I strut about proudly, lift my waistcoat and tap my fob pocket. In this way I make him understand that the state of self-confidence he sees me in comes from the coin in there.'

The rich get richer.

Locke's tract on making commonplace books