http://youtu.be/p4rF5mspaVk Watch on YouTube. Christopher Hitchens died on Thursday after a punishing bout with cancer, and I'd like to take the liberty of inserting a brief memoriam. I do this in a philosophy blog partially because PEL recently discussed one of his books. But mostly I do it because I would hate to think anyone remembers Hitchens as nothing more than a "New Continue Reading …
“The Nation” on Brooks on Cognitive Neuroscience
We've bashed NY Times columnist David Brooks before on this blog for his attempts at philosophy, and I absolutely feel for the guy from a logistical perspective: he's not an academic that can take a sabbatical and hole up to write and revise. He's more or less a blogger who has to fumble around every few days to figure out something that he's read about to spit back in an Continue Reading …
Pathetically Rand
Enough said: Rand clearly thought of herself as one of these creators. In an interview with Mike Wallace she declared herself "the most creative thinker alive." ... Two years later, Rand told Wallace that "the only philosopher who ever influenced me" was Aristotle. Otherwise, everything came "out of my own mind." She boasted to her friends and to her publisher at Random House, Continue Reading …