The epistemology vs. epidemiology (Odds Are, It’s Wrong – Science News): “There is increasing concern,” declared epidemiologist John Ioannidis in a highly cited 2005 paper in PLoS Medicine, “that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims.” … Nowhere are the problems with statistics more blatant than in studies of Continue Reading …
Fodor, Darwin, and the Philosophy of Science
I had been looking forward to Jerry Fodor’s What Darwin Got Wrong (co-authored with Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini), not because I have anything against Darwin but because Fodor is a superb writer, the well-respected cognitive scientist who “laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and language of thought hypotheses,” and a worthy opponent of the idiocy of evolutionary psychologists who seem Continue Reading …
The Dog: Civilization’s Best Friend (and a “true philosopher”)
The New York Times (my emphasis): Dog domestication and human settlement occurred at the same time, some 15,000 years ago, raising the possibility that dogs may have had a complex impact on the structure of human society. Dogs could have been the sentries that let hunter gatherers settle without fear of surprise attack. They may also have been the first Continue Reading …
Randinetics: The Modern Science of Permanent Adolescence
The Web seems to have broken out in a bad case of Ayn Rand in the last month or so. The original sin seems to have been The New Criterion’s rebuke of philosophical adolescents everywhere: Rand’s hero-worship is also Nietzschean in inspiration. It is deeply unpleasant. She entirely lacks the literary ability to convey anything admirable, or even minimally attractive, about Continue Reading …
Is Humanities Graduate School a “Big Lie”?
Yes: Their daughter goes to graduate school, earns a doctorate in comparative literature from an Ivy League university, everyone is proud of her, and then they are shocked when she struggles for years to earn more than the minimum wage. (Meanwhile, her brother—who was never very good at school—makes a decent living fixing HVAC systems with a six-month certificate from Continue Reading …
Searches that Send Traffic to this Site
A surprising number of people google “partially examined life.” And then we get quite a bit of traffic from searches like “philosophy podcast” and “wittgenstein podcast.” But we also get hits from “grandpa bought a rubber.” Here are few more of my favorites: District 9 and Nietzsche Chuang Tzu Pronunciation Half examined life Partially good life And last but most: Continue Reading …
Self-Justify or Die
Pennsylvania may get rid of a number of its Philosophy (and other useless) departments because they graduate fewer than 30 majors over five years. Unless they justify their existence. That’s an ironically philosophical task. Scheherazadian (a word which justifies its existence as legitimate by having 1,410 occurrences on Google, despite the fact that there no Merriam Webster definition). I suggest department heads Continue Reading …
Self-Justify or Die
Pennsylvania may get rid of a number of its Philosophy (and other useless) departments because they graduate fewer than 30 majors over five years. Unless they justify their existence. That’s an ironically philosophical task. Scheherazadian (a word which justifies its existence as legitimate by having 1,410 occurrences on Google, despite the fact that there no Merriam Webster definition). I suggest department heads Continue Reading …
Hitler finds out about his philosophy grad school applications
Christian Realism and Holy War
“Christian Realism” — even Christians ought to struggle with David Brook’s latest invention. How delightful to juxtapose other-worldliness and practicality! But to really understand it, replace “Christian” with “love” and “Realism” with “War.” Meaning, “I love war, but I wage it only out of love.” It’s almost a self-parodying confirmation of Nietzsche’s critique of the human capacity for turning aggression into Continue Reading …
Seth Bait
Brian Leiter skewers Chronical reporter Carlin Romano (yet again) for a piece that calls Heidegger a “provincial Nazi hack.”
Podcast Equipment Nerdfest
After some problems with atrocious audio quality, I went a little overboard on a new mic/accessories: Audio-Technica AT2020 USB Condenser USB Microphone Samson SP01 Shockmount Spider Mount for Condenser Mics On Stage Tripod Microphone Stand (7701B) OMNITRONICS EPF-15A Cad Mic Pop Filter
It’s in: most philosophers accept or lean towards compatibilism
From a poll of 438 “professional” philosophers. (The idea of philosophy as a profession still amuses me). Of course, that leaves the question of whether one can “lean towards” freely.
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