4 votes

The mystery of the millionaire metaphysician

Posted by Pilgrim
Tags: philosophy, metaphysics, games afoot, mysteries, author.james ryerson, long read, paywall
https://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2012/02/the_mystery_of_the_millionaire_metaphysician_slate_republishes_one_of_the_greatest_magazine_stories_ever_written_.html?via=gdpr-consent&via=gdpr-consent

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Title
A Strange Philosophical Manuscript. A Secret Benefactor. The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician.
Authors
James Ryerson
Published
Feb 10 2012
Word count
5835 words

2 comments

  1. scot
    Link
    Fascinating read. Thank you for posting. I was a student of philosophy once myself and took away from it in addition to respect for well-trained thinkers, a similar ruffled kerchief concerning the...

    Fascinating read. Thank you for posting. I was a student of philosophy once myself and took away from it in addition to respect for well-trained thinkers, a similar ruffled kerchief concerning the exclusivity of the established philosophical elite. I felt at the time, as the author of the 60-page treatise in question, an enjoyment for imaginative and admittedly amateur noodlings into metaphysics whose wings were clipped by clear and sometimes laborious logical arguments. It comes down in the end for many amateurs to a question of being thorough and rigid or of finding enjoyment and enlightenment in your own musings. I for one, flirted with falling into the category the article describes as amateur philosophers conjuring perceived truths along their descent into paranoia and madness. The film A Beautiful Mind sums up this type of ego-driven metaphysical pondering. I humbly abandoned the stack of marble composition books I madly filled during my student days.

    2 votes
  2. Pilgrim
    Link

    In the July/August 2001 issue of the late, great magazine Lingua Franca, James Ryerson published an enthralling article about an anonymous benefactor who was paying professors huge sums of money to review a strange 60-page philosophical manuscript. Slate editor David Plotz talked about “The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician” on this week’s Political Gabfest, citing it as one of his favorite magazine articles of all time. Ryerson gave Slate permission to republish the story in full.

    The next day Zimmerman received a letter from the A.M. Monius Institute. Printed on official-looking stationery and signed by the institute's director, Netzin Steklis, the letter offered Zimmerman a "generous" sum of money to review a sixty-page work of metaphysics titled "Coming to Understanding." As the letter explained, the institute "exists for the primary purpose of disseminating the work 'Coming to Understanding' and encouraging its critical review and improvement." For Zimmerman's philosophical services, the institute was prepared to pay him the astronomical fee of twelve thousand U.S. dollars.

    1 vote