Month: August 1999

16968 views

  • /

Guest writer: Barry Kavanagh. I am informed that the Count O'Blather is currently "out to lunch" and "clinically dead" or somesuch. Not being one of the pundits of paranormality (or even quasinormality), I find myself ideally placed to take on this sinister holiday role of agent-provocateur. More about this later! This issue of *Blather* is devoted to a book called *The Tao is Silent* by a mathematical logician called Raymond M. Smullyan (Harper San Francisco, 1977). This is a "beguiling and whimsical" application of Chinese philosophy (mainly Taoism) to modern life in the Western world. However, as Smullyan makes clear in his preface, he came to Taoist writings through Zen-Buddhism and there is much of Zen in *The Tao is Silent*. Also, he writes that the book is a collection of "ideas inspired by Chinese philosophy" so on top of the Taoism and Zen there is a great big dollop...

Read more