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On Values and the Razor: How Clarifying is Ockham’s Shave?

December 3, 2012 by C.-Derick-Varn 6 Comments

[Editor's Note: Here's a submission from Derick, guest from our Saussure episode.] "Plurality should not be posited without necessity." -Duns Scotus "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." -William of Ockham Here's a philosophical thesis that should be obvious but apparently isn't: Ockham's Razor is not an ontological rule nor even a necessary rule of  Continue Reading …

Ghostlier Demarcations, Keener Sounds

September 30, 2012 by C.-Derick-Varn 2 Comments

When writing about literature and philosophy there are three obvious tropes: the existential or absurdist nior, the speculative fiction, and the condemnation of poetry.  Not that poetry hasn't had its defenders, and if Mark's rant is indication, the sort of "deepity" he seems to accuse McCarthy of can easily be applied to most poets. In fact, Zizek would apply atrocities to us  Continue Reading …

What is Mystification? A Review of Derrida (2002)

July 10, 2012 by C.-Derick-Varn 2 Comments

How strange it is see the banal paired with the almost Talmudic elements of Derrida's thought. This pairing, this humanizing of Derrida in Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman's documentary that shares his name is, in an subtle way, the mystification of abstract thoughts.  The idea that one must humanize the philosopher still implies a certain alienation from abstraction that one  Continue Reading …

Badiou: Wittgenstein and Nietzsche as Anti-Philosophy

May 25, 2012 by C.-Derick-Varn 7 Comments

Listening to the guys and Philosophy Bro on the last episode, I want to interject that actually I see Wittgenstein as a bridge between analytic and continental philosophy for reasons beyond his being Austrian. What he brackets out and why is crucial to his project, which does become "anti-philosophical" in a broad sense. Anti-philosophy is defined by both Alain Badiou and  Continue Reading …

Some Questions on Buddhism and Science

April 12, 2012 by C.-Derick-Varn 24 Comments

Check out this video: Buddhism and Science: A Brief History from The Berkley Center. Often reading Buddhism into science and vice-versa can be very misleading. This talk by Thupten Jinpa is in dialogue with David Lopez's excellent book, Buddhism and Science: A Guide For the Perplexed. Dr. Jinpa pretty much states the historical Tibetan relationship to science as it came late  Continue Reading …

No Self, but a Subject?

March 31, 2012 by C.-Derick-Varn 12 Comments

At one time in Savatthi, the venerable Radha seated himself and asked of the Blessed Lord Buddha: “Anatta, anatta I hear said, Venerable. What, pray tell, does Anatta mean?” “Just this, Radha, form is not the self (anatta), sensations are not the self (anatta), perceptions are not the self (anatta), assemblages are not the self (anatta), consciousness is not the self (anatta).  Continue Reading …

Zizek and Adorno: The Function of the Popular?

March 5, 2012 by C.-Derick-Varn 14 Comments

[Editor's Note: We welcome Derick from our semiotics episode You can read more of him on his blog.]   http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-njxKF8CkoU Watch on YouTube. With Slavoj Zizek's Lacanized form of Hegelian Marxism being all the rage these days, it is interesting to look at the Frankfurt School's earlier Freudian version of the  Continue Reading …

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