Concept tag
#craft
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A philosopher says there are no tables, only particles arranged tablewise. I make tables
A customer's son is studying philosophy in Rabat. While I was fitting their cedar ceiling he told me about a book called Material Beings by Peter van Inwagen. As far as I understood him, van Inwagen thinks that when many small things…
Started by Hicham Ouazzani5 replies -
Does philosophy make you better at your actual job, or just more annoying at it?
I'm a carpenter in Tetouan. I've been reading philosophy for a few years, mostly Aristotle, because he talks about carpenters and builders so much, and lately Ibn Bājja, who was from al-Andalus and thought hard about how a person can live well…
Started by Hicham Ouazzani7 replies -
A door-maker reads Hume’s Dialogues: the design argument from the workshop
This one comes from the workshop. I have been reading Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in a French translation, because people kept telling me the design argument is about things like what I make. The argument says: the world is like a…
Started by Hicham Ouazzani5 replies -
What did al-Ghazālī mean by beauty as a thing’s proper perfection?
I make hand-drawn batik in Yogyakarta, in a workshop my mother started. At a study circle last month, the teacher said that for al-Ghazālī everything has its own beauty, which lies in the perfection proper to it: a horse is beautiful as…
Started by Ratna Wulandari4 replies -
Skilled manual work demands more thinking than most office work
My cousin works in an office in Casablanca and earns three times what I do, and the family assumes his work is the one that uses the head. Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft argues the reverse, and I want to defend…
Started by Hicham Ouazzani6 replies -
Twelve-pointed stars in cedar: what is Islamic geometric pattern actually for?
My father taught me to lay out a star pattern for a ceiling with nothing but a compass, a straightedge and a cord. You start with a circle, divide it, draw lines that pass through the divisions, and the twelve-pointed star appears…
Started by Hicham Ouazzani5 replies -
Crackle lines in batik: a flaw my mother taught me to keep
In hand-drawn batik, after the wax is applied and the cloth goes into the dye, the wax sometimes cracks. Dye seeps into the cracks and leaves fine veined lines across the pattern. Some makers try to avoid it. My mother taught me…
Started by Ratna Wulandari4 replies