I am in the midst of giving oral exams for my ethics course, so substantial posting will have to wait a bit; but expect a post on the philosophical justification of Judaism in IV Maccabees, which keeps whirling in my head and will have to be let out at some point in the near future. Some things about town:
* I intended to mention this before, but kept forgetting: David Corfield discusses the sublime in mathematics at "A Dialogue on Infinity".
* Roger Scruton, Cities for Living, discusses Léon Krier's vision for urban humanity.
* Franklin Freeman discusses Flann O'Brien. At-Swim-Two-Birds had its moments, but The Third Policeman is a stunningly good book. I would say it's better than anything Joyce wrote, but I suppose that that would be one more point on which I'd find myself in a minority.
* Dale Tuggy's series on dealing with apparent inconsistencies is up to eight posts:
Part 1: The Four R's
Part 2: Redirection
Part 3: Restraint
Part 4: Restraint and Implicit Faith
Part 5: Aquinas on Implicit Faith
Part 6: Restraint, Implicit Belief, and Stalin
Part 7: Resolution by Rational Reinterpretation
Part 8: Rational Reinterpretation, Cont.
Part 9: Rational Reinterpretation, Cont. [Added Later]
Here and there I make a nuisance of myself since, already seeing as I do even most ordinary philosophical arguments not merely in terms of premises and form but also in terms of tactic and strategy, I am very much more optimistic than Dale is about the pedigree and the rationality, at least under certain circumstances, of some of these tactics.
* Terry Tomkow discusses the need for open access philosophy. He also suggests an Open Access Pledge. I wouldn't sign it, because I don't generally sign pledges (having a tendency to forget that I signed them), but the guidelines are ones to which I am very sympathetic, and I think everyone should look them over as a way to start thinking about how the mode of their academic philosophical work could be improved.
