* Early Modern Carnivalesque is up at Cliopatria. My post at Houyhnhnm Land on The Horizontal Moon is in it. Jonathan Dresner did a great job of organizing it! The next Carnivalesque will be the Ancient/Medieval edition.
* The Camel's Nose Is in the Tent: Rules, Theories, and Slippery Slopes by Mario Rizzo and Douglas Glen Whitman (HT: Agoraphilia)
* In Carly Simon's 1973 hit song, "You're So Vain," Simon has the lines, "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you." Glen Whitman at Agoraphilia suggests that the song is about several men, so that "You probably think this song is about you" means "You probably think this song is about you in particular." I think this is close; but the supposition of several men is unnecessary. Actually, Simon's song is paralleled by (I'd imagine) hundreds and maybe thousands of arguments between couples every day. She starts talking about herself; she mentions him prominently because she's in a relationship with him (with all the problems and issues that raises); being a self-centered jerk, he assumes that the mentions mean that he's the topic of the day. So it is here: he can't see that the song is about her, and merely mentions him. There's actually a lot in the song that supports this latter supposition. And it's an important distinction; the fact that the song has lines that are about him doesn't mean that the song itself is about him.
* Brush Up on Butler is the best place on the web to find resources on early modern moral philosopher, Joseph Butler. I find that I've been put up as a link, which is nice. I haven't done much on Butler in the last two or three months, but I've been meaning to return to the good Bishop of Durham. And I certainly will now.
* An Argument Against Doubt at "Mumblings and Grumblings" is interesting; I think Descartes deals with this sort of argument in the Replies to the Seventh Objections.
