* Sharon Howard has reposted her classic post, Women’s history/gender history: what and why?
* Mike Liccione continues his musings on the Filioque; I think this is his best post on the subject so far.
* Dale Tuggy is discussing tactics people use to deal with apparent inconsistencies. So far he has: Part I, Part II
* D. G. D. Davidson examines the flaws and limitations of Sheldonism as a Christian approach to literature -- Sheldonism being that approach found in the works of Charles Sheldon (best known for In His Steps).
* The Thomist considers oversimplifications of the doctrine of the mean.
* Jason Kuznicki looks at Hegel on the State.
* Kevin Edgecomb discusses The Way of a Pilgrim and the Philokalia.
* Bonnie at Intellectuelle considers a quote from Simone de Beauvoir.
* Jane Austen's Evening Prayers.
And since I previously quoted from MacIntyre's discussion of Austen's view of the virtues, it is perhaps worth reminding ourselves that she had a sense of humor about them.
* The Seven Deadly Sins in Dante, Langland, Chaucer, and Spenser. The Seven Deadly Sins, of course, are (strictly speaking) the acts of the Seven Capital Vices, although the former phrase often covers the latter as well. Some lovely pictures of medieval trees of virtues and vices (discussion in PDF of this genre).
I recently discussed remedy in traditional virtue ethics with my ethics class; and it occurred to me that this is an important feature of traditional virtue ethics that receives relatively little discussion in modern virtue ethics. There are some exceptions, especially in more historically aware explorations of themes in virtue ethics; e.g., some of Rebecca Konyndyk De Young's work.
* N. T. Wright and Richard John Neuhaus argue.
ADDED LATER
* I only just came across this, although it is a bit old by now. Under Harper the Canadian government took a step it should have taken decades ago: the Prime Minister apologizes to Canada's aboriginal nations for mismanagement of Indian residential schools. Now it needs to take that momentum and convert it into practical action.
Friday, June 20, 2008
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Anonymous
0 points
14 years ago
I have a hard time buying this sentiment as authentically Ryle's (and Google doesn't show anything substantiating it). Ryle wrote a generally positive review of "Being and Time", and when asked about SuZ later he didn't have much to say other than "Oh, yeah, I read that a long time ago and wrote a book review, which I worked hard on but no one ever asked me about. Haven't really thought of it since. Dunno whether it influenced me or not. I liked logical positivism more, at the time, but I might've found appealing anti-Cartesian/proto-behaviorist stuff in SuZ." (I paraphrase; the full quote is in the appendix on p. 290 of Heidegger and Modern Philosophy, which also reprints Ryle's book review from Mind.)
I also don't see what's wrong with the sentiment Ryle genuinely had about SuZ: There're helpful things to be gleaned from it, but the project as a whole isn't the way to go.
I don't know what his character has to do with whether, say, his criticisms of Husserl hit their mark, despite the fact that Being is all over the place in a lot of those; the fact that a Nazi says that everything he's done with his work had to do with his Nazism doesn't make it so. I've never seen a defense of Husserl which takes the form "But this criticism only holds water if you're a Nazi, ergo Husserl escapes the charge."
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Anonymous
0 points
14 years ago
I doubt it's Ryle's, as well; it's a Rylean-like summation, though, even if it's not Ryle's own opinion. But Polt doesn't get into questions of provenance.
Since Ryle's sentiment in the comment really doesn't tell us anything about how to handle the question of Heidegger's Nazism, I'm not sure how it's relevant. Likewise, whether or not Heidegger's criticisms of Husserl are untowardly connected is something that has to be determined, not assumed. The fact that a Nazi says something doesn't make it false, true, but it also doesn't make it non-Nazi in attitude, formulation, or substance; given that we are quite literally talking about a Nazi, that there is nothing about it that is Nazi has to be shown, not insisted upon a priori. As I say, it has to be unwound and then rewound in such a way as to show that there is no Nazi distortion in it. If we can do that, fine and dandy; before we do it, though, we have no license to pretend that all is obviously safe.
Much of the problem lies precisely in reasoning by analogy here, which generally involves merely fooling ourselves by glossing over obviously significant differences. Nazism isn't a limited foible like drinking too much or sexual perversion, that might affect some philosophical fringes here and there but no more. It is a large-scale commitment; and, contrary to the tendency to insist on it as 'politics', it's not a merely political commitment like deciding one will support the Green Party in local elections. It carries a vision of technology, society, humanity. And this is undeniably so in Heidegger's case; Heidegger's own characterizations of his involvement, vague and weasely though they often are, links it with some of this major philosophical concerns. We should not fall into the hubris of pretending to know prior to all evidence what distortions such a commitment may or may not introduce into a philosophical approach, method, position, or system.