* 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.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Monday, July 04, 2005
Carnivalesque Reminder
Don't forget that the early modern edition of Carnivalesque will be held tomorrow, so if you have any nominations or submissions, you should get them in today: dresner[at]hawaii[dot]edu.
She Goes Not Abroad, in Search of Monsters to Destroy
John Quincy Adams guestblogs at Cliopatria, with some words that are certainly relevant to today.
I haven't read much of Adams; but my favorite Adams oration is online, at Project Gutenberg: "The Jubilee of the Constitution, delivered at New York, April 30, 1839, before the New York Historical Society." The speech is an argument that the Constitution improved upon the Articles of Confederation by returning the principles of the Declaration of Independence. My favorite part:
I don't agree with all of Adams's argument (I don't have quite the animus against the Articles of Confederation that he did), but I think he was on to something.
You can also find Adams's State of the Union addresses. I looked over them when composing this post, and was rather saddened by the thought that they show so vividly a decline in the governance of our great nation: compare the propagandistic, self-aggrandizing pap of modern addresses with the substantive addresses -- sometimes short, but almost always conveying crucial points -- of early Presidents like Adams. For that matter, compare recent Presidents to the Presidents of the middle of the twentieth century. To some extent it's a matter of subjective judgment, but it seems to me that, while there were already clear signs of decline, there begins to be sharp decline in quality of thought with Johnson; in particular, a massively increased tendency to tell us less about the state of the Union and more about why we should believe that the President is brilliant. Looking at various online summaries of the history of the addresses, I wonder if the reason has to do with television. Truman's 1947 State of the Union was the first to be televised. And perhaps it has some effect on the speeches of Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. But Johnson must have been very aware of the political value of television, since he's the one who moved the State of the Union to prime time; and comparing his addresses to those of Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy is a bit jarring. Starting with Johnson the advertisements and excuses, and endless egoistic self-parading, seem to begin in earnest. And it doesn't really get better at any point, although to be fair, Reagan at least has the decency to make the excuses and advertisements less obvious - he's politicking rather than giving us the state of the Union, but at least he sometimes manages to sound like he's telling us about the state of the Union. Clinton and the Bushes are all shameless, although Bush Sr.'s first address starts out on the right note. Of course, it seems to have been Reagan who started that nasty, horrible habit of actually having in the address a sentence saying something like "The State of the Union is strong" -- the most uninformative do-nothing politically-smarmy sentence you can find in any State of the Union address; and it has come up often. When Wilson re-instated the long-dead practice of delivering the State of the Union address in person, the practice having been killed by Jefferson's refusal to act like a monarch, he was attacked by members both within and without his party for trying to imitate the silly pompousness and cavalcades of despots. Perhaps it's time we started saying the same.
(A good essay on the problem of the televised addresses here.)
I haven't read much of Adams; but my favorite Adams oration is online, at Project Gutenberg: "The Jubilee of the Constitution, delivered at New York, April 30, 1839, before the New York Historical Society." The speech is an argument that the Constitution improved upon the Articles of Confederation by returning the principles of the Declaration of Independence. My favorite part:
And thus was consummated the work commenced by the Declaration of Independence--a work in which the people of the North American Union, acting under the deepest sense of responsibility to the Supreme Ruler of the universe, had achieved the most transcendent act of power that social man in his mortal condition can perform--even that of dissolving the ties of allegiance by which he is bound to his country; of renouncing that country itself; of demolishing its government; of instituting another government; and of making for himself another country in its stead.
And on that day, of which you now commemorate the fiftieth anniversary--on that thirtieth day of April, 1789--was this mighty revolution, not only in the affairs of our own country, but in the principles of government over civilized man, accomplished.
The Revolution itself was a work of thirteen years--and had never been completed until that day. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are parts of one consistent whole, founded upon one and the same theory of government, then new in practice, though not as a theory, for it had been working itself into the mind of man for many ages, and had been especially expounded in the writings of Locke, though it had never before been adopted by a great nation in practice.
I don't agree with all of Adams's argument (I don't have quite the animus against the Articles of Confederation that he did), but I think he was on to something.
You can also find Adams's State of the Union addresses. I looked over them when composing this post, and was rather saddened by the thought that they show so vividly a decline in the governance of our great nation: compare the propagandistic, self-aggrandizing pap of modern addresses with the substantive addresses -- sometimes short, but almost always conveying crucial points -- of early Presidents like Adams. For that matter, compare recent Presidents to the Presidents of the middle of the twentieth century. To some extent it's a matter of subjective judgment, but it seems to me that, while there were already clear signs of decline, there begins to be sharp decline in quality of thought with Johnson; in particular, a massively increased tendency to tell us less about the state of the Union and more about why we should believe that the President is brilliant. Looking at various online summaries of the history of the addresses, I wonder if the reason has to do with television. Truman's 1947 State of the Union was the first to be televised. And perhaps it has some effect on the speeches of Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. But Johnson must have been very aware of the political value of television, since he's the one who moved the State of the Union to prime time; and comparing his addresses to those of Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy is a bit jarring. Starting with Johnson the advertisements and excuses, and endless egoistic self-parading, seem to begin in earnest. And it doesn't really get better at any point, although to be fair, Reagan at least has the decency to make the excuses and advertisements less obvious - he's politicking rather than giving us the state of the Union, but at least he sometimes manages to sound like he's telling us about the state of the Union. Clinton and the Bushes are all shameless, although Bush Sr.'s first address starts out on the right note. Of course, it seems to have been Reagan who started that nasty, horrible habit of actually having in the address a sentence saying something like "The State of the Union is strong" -- the most uninformative do-nothing politically-smarmy sentence you can find in any State of the Union address; and it has come up often. When Wilson re-instated the long-dead practice of delivering the State of the Union address in person, the practice having been killed by Jefferson's refusal to act like a monarch, he was attacked by members both within and without his party for trying to imitate the silly pompousness and cavalcades of despots. Perhaps it's time we started saying the same.
(A good essay on the problem of the televised addresses here.)
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Three Peculiar Pages
Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, published in multiple volumes in the 1760s, is perhaps the world's greatest experimental novel. That's a fairly bold statement, but if any experimental novel has a claim on that title, Tristram Shandy does. For quite a while now I've wanted to put up a post on three pages in the work, each of which is intended to indicate an aspect of the mysteriousness of human life.
The Black Page
In Volume I Chapter XII we find a page that looks something like this:
It is an elegiac page; Sterne inserts it after the death of the parson Yorick (Alas, poor Yorick! -- According to Shandy, this Yorick is a relative of Hamlet's Yorick). It symbolizes the mystery of death. Death is a black page, something put in the novel which we are almost expected to read (and which we all try to read, as we always try to 'read' death and the mysteries involved therein).
The Marbled Page
This page, which is inserted at the end of Volume III Chapter XXXVI, I can't really reproduce here; for an example, see Tristram Shandy Online.
I say 'an example' because an example is all that it is. It is one marbled page. But the marbling process creates a different page each time. Thus, every single book with a true marbled page has a different marbled page! And that's the point. As the narrator says:
A "motley emblem of my work": in other words, the book itself. But the book is itself a sort of presentation of life -- Sterne is constantly mocking the pretensions of the novel to being 'true to life' by giving it, in Tristram Shandy, a task that takes such a pretension seriously: the actual recording of a full life, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. With the exception of a few digressions and what one generally learns about a narrator (who is Tristram himself), we learn virtually nothing about Tristram's actual life: virtually all the long, sprawling, unfinished nine-volume work is devoted to the background that would be needed to understand Shandy's early years. A large chunk is taken to develop the background necessary for understanding his conception, and another to understanding his birth; we already get something of the Tristra-paedia, and would no doubt get more if Sterne had managed (as he intended) to write yet more volumes. The novel's 'trueness to life' is simply inadequate for a serious demand that it be true to life. Tristram Shandy is motley and endless because human life is motley and so individualized -- each person being, as it were, a unique marbled page, whose individuality is so precise it admits of no adequate description.
The Blank Page
The third peculiar page is found in Volume VI Chapter XXXVIII. Shandy has just begun to talk about the widow Wadman, of whom he says at the end of Chapter XXXVII, "never did they eyes behold, or they concupiscence covet any thing in this world, more concupiscible than widow Wadman". He then goes on to say:
The Picture of the Widow Wadman, the most desirable of all women, is a blank page. And after the blank page, the narrator continues:
It might be a bit too pedantic, or too pompous, or both, to say that this blank symbolizes the mystery of love, although I think a lot could be said in such a vein. What we call 'beautiful' or 'attractive' is actually just that which is blank enough that we can 'please our fancy in it'; we conceive it aright when we just let our imagination make it up. And it's surprising how obvious this sometimes seems if you think about the fashion industry, or Hollywood. There are always exceptions, of course; but attractive people are often blank -- not quite as blank as the picture of Widow Wadman, but blank enough -- and all their attractiveness is just what we have chosen to write on them with our imaginations (often guided by designers and directors). In other words, they are attractive to so many people because they are so easy for everyone to adapt for their own imaginations.
But it's possible to look at the blank page a bit differently (one of the problems with the interpretation of a blank page, I suppose). This is suggested by the "Thrice Happy Book" paragraph. The blank page is not merely about the interpretation of beauty or 'concupiscibility'. [Incidentally, the ambiguity of what Sterne actually says about the widow is interesting. He says that our eyes have not seen or our concupiscences coveted anything so concupiscible as the widow Wadman. One reading of that, encouraged by the lines immediately following the blank page, is to take 'concupiscible' as synonymous with desirable; but it could be a play on words, as well, since 'concupiscible' can also mean 'filled with strong desire, lustful', which describes the widow to a T, as she lays siege to poor uncle Toby in order to get him as a husband.] The problem with interpreting concupiscibility can be generalized to all interpretation. By providing a blank page, Shandy purports to give us the one page in his book safe from distortion by malice or ignorance; since there is no right or wrong way to interpret a blank page, it is immune from misinterpretation.
I think of that blank page sometimes when I get the sinking feeling (as one is apt occasionally to do in history of philosophy, since I know I'm not the only one to feel this way at times) that I am surrounded by brilliant, intelligent people who nevertheless cannot read. They're literate, but more is needed to read Descartes than vocabulary and grammar, which are just the technical rudiments of the art of reading. For it is an art, one that has to be adapted to the peculiarities of each genre and text; it is a very difficult art, one that takes patience to learn. The feeling that they can't read at all is, of course, a bit exaggerated, and only liable to overtake one when faced with the most egregious cases. It's not quite that bad; and yet there is sometimes enough of a deficiency there to make one through up one's hands in a fit of exasperation (in my case it doesn't help that I do so much work with authors and texts that diverge considerably from people's expectations -- Malebranche, for instance, is notoriously easy to misread, and if my interpretation of him is right, he has always been misread, as he often insists he was, by people who fail to take seriously what he thinks is important). And we are not talking here about mere misreading, which is a possibility that can never entirely be eliminated in reading, however well one reads -- it's always possible that, even if only on one point, the author is too clever for you, or that the text is set up in a way that with your background you can't help but project your own imagination onto it regardless of what the author actually says. The problem identified here is more systematic, more consistent, than the occasional lapses to which we are all certainly subject. The problem is that all text invites misrepresentation; all communication that's more than a blank page is perpetually in danger of being misread by people who have not learned the art of reading that particular sort of communication well. The only remedy, to the extent that there is a remedy, is the cultivation of candor (which I suppose would be the eighteenth-century opposite of malice) and relevant knowledge, and the patient self-cultivation required for both. Sterne, so often misread himself, knew this well.
Those are just three pages in the novel. Sterne does a many other experimental things that are fascinating in themselves. But the three peculiar pages are my favorites.
The Black Page
In Volume I Chapter XII we find a page that looks something like this:
It is an elegiac page; Sterne inserts it after the death of the parson Yorick (Alas, poor Yorick! -- According to Shandy, this Yorick is a relative of Hamlet's Yorick). It symbolizes the mystery of death. Death is a black page, something put in the novel which we are almost expected to read (and which we all try to read, as we always try to 'read' death and the mysteries involved therein).
The Marbled Page
This page, which is inserted at the end of Volume III Chapter XXXVI, I can't really reproduce here; for an example, see Tristram Shandy Online.
I say 'an example' because an example is all that it is. It is one marbled page. But the marbling process creates a different page each time. Thus, every single book with a true marbled page has a different marbled page! And that's the point. As the narrator says:
Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader ! read, -- or by the knowledge of the great saint Paraleipomenon -- I tell you before-hand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading, by which your reverence knows, I mean much knowledge, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motly emblem of my work !) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unraval the many opinions, transactions and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark veil of the black one.
A "motley emblem of my work": in other words, the book itself. But the book is itself a sort of presentation of life -- Sterne is constantly mocking the pretensions of the novel to being 'true to life' by giving it, in Tristram Shandy, a task that takes such a pretension seriously: the actual recording of a full life, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. With the exception of a few digressions and what one generally learns about a narrator (who is Tristram himself), we learn virtually nothing about Tristram's actual life: virtually all the long, sprawling, unfinished nine-volume work is devoted to the background that would be needed to understand Shandy's early years. A large chunk is taken to develop the background necessary for understanding his conception, and another to understanding his birth; we already get something of the Tristra-paedia, and would no doubt get more if Sterne had managed (as he intended) to write yet more volumes. The novel's 'trueness to life' is simply inadequate for a serious demand that it be true to life. Tristram Shandy is motley and endless because human life is motley and so individualized -- each person being, as it were, a unique marbled page, whose individuality is so precise it admits of no adequate description.
The Blank Page
The third peculiar page is found in Volume VI Chapter XXXVIII. Shandy has just begun to talk about the widow Wadman, of whom he says at the end of Chapter XXXVII, "never did they eyes behold, or they concupiscence covet any thing in this world, more concupiscible than widow Wadman". He then goes on to say:
TO conceive this right, -- call for pen and ink -- here's paper ready to your hand. ---- Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind ---- as like your mistress
as you can ---- as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you -- 'tis all
one to me ---- please but your own fancy in it.
The Picture of the Widow Wadman, the most desirable of all women, is a blank page. And after the blank page, the narrator continues:
------ Was ever any thing in Nature so sweet ! -- so exquisite !
---- Then, dear Sir, how could my uncle Toby resist it ?
Thrice happy book ! thou wilt have one page, at least, within thy covers,
which MALICE will not blacken, and which IGNORANCE cannot misrepresent.
It might be a bit too pedantic, or too pompous, or both, to say that this blank symbolizes the mystery of love, although I think a lot could be said in such a vein. What we call 'beautiful' or 'attractive' is actually just that which is blank enough that we can 'please our fancy in it'; we conceive it aright when we just let our imagination make it up. And it's surprising how obvious this sometimes seems if you think about the fashion industry, or Hollywood. There are always exceptions, of course; but attractive people are often blank -- not quite as blank as the picture of Widow Wadman, but blank enough -- and all their attractiveness is just what we have chosen to write on them with our imaginations (often guided by designers and directors). In other words, they are attractive to so many people because they are so easy for everyone to adapt for their own imaginations.
But it's possible to look at the blank page a bit differently (one of the problems with the interpretation of a blank page, I suppose). This is suggested by the "Thrice Happy Book" paragraph. The blank page is not merely about the interpretation of beauty or 'concupiscibility'. [Incidentally, the ambiguity of what Sterne actually says about the widow is interesting. He says that our eyes have not seen or our concupiscences coveted anything so concupiscible as the widow Wadman. One reading of that, encouraged by the lines immediately following the blank page, is to take 'concupiscible' as synonymous with desirable; but it could be a play on words, as well, since 'concupiscible' can also mean 'filled with strong desire, lustful', which describes the widow to a T, as she lays siege to poor uncle Toby in order to get him as a husband.] The problem with interpreting concupiscibility can be generalized to all interpretation. By providing a blank page, Shandy purports to give us the one page in his book safe from distortion by malice or ignorance; since there is no right or wrong way to interpret a blank page, it is immune from misinterpretation.
I think of that blank page sometimes when I get the sinking feeling (as one is apt occasionally to do in history of philosophy, since I know I'm not the only one to feel this way at times) that I am surrounded by brilliant, intelligent people who nevertheless cannot read. They're literate, but more is needed to read Descartes than vocabulary and grammar, which are just the technical rudiments of the art of reading. For it is an art, one that has to be adapted to the peculiarities of each genre and text; it is a very difficult art, one that takes patience to learn. The feeling that they can't read at all is, of course, a bit exaggerated, and only liable to overtake one when faced with the most egregious cases. It's not quite that bad; and yet there is sometimes enough of a deficiency there to make one through up one's hands in a fit of exasperation (in my case it doesn't help that I do so much work with authors and texts that diverge considerably from people's expectations -- Malebranche, for instance, is notoriously easy to misread, and if my interpretation of him is right, he has always been misread, as he often insists he was, by people who fail to take seriously what he thinks is important). And we are not talking here about mere misreading, which is a possibility that can never entirely be eliminated in reading, however well one reads -- it's always possible that, even if only on one point, the author is too clever for you, or that the text is set up in a way that with your background you can't help but project your own imagination onto it regardless of what the author actually says. The problem identified here is more systematic, more consistent, than the occasional lapses to which we are all certainly subject. The problem is that all text invites misrepresentation; all communication that's more than a blank page is perpetually in danger of being misread by people who have not learned the art of reading that particular sort of communication well. The only remedy, to the extent that there is a remedy, is the cultivation of candor (which I suppose would be the eighteenth-century opposite of malice) and relevant knowledge, and the patient self-cultivation required for both. Sterne, so often misread himself, knew this well.
Those are just three pages in the novel. Sterne does a many other experimental things that are fascinating in themselves. But the three peculiar pages are my favorites.
Further Linking
* I've always thought that, despite some weaknesses, The Ball and the Cross is one of Chesterton's best works -- not up to the level of The Man Who Was Thursday, to be sure, but still quite good. Michael Gilleland recently posted the following quote from the book, which reminds me of why:
So if you haven't already, read the book, you chimpanzees. And I use that word in a nice way.
* At "Houyhnhnm Land" I've posted on an important issue in the philosophy of vision, the Horizontal Moon; or, as Sharon calls it, Mooning with Brandon. (An interesting fact: for most people the illusion ceases if they stand with their back to the moon, bend over, and look at it through their legs.) You can leave comments about it here, if the impulse takes you; if you catch any errors I've overlooked, please let me know.
* Around July 4, it's always a good thing to take a little time out for a relevant blogospheric classic, What Should Christians Think of the Fourth of July? at "Parableman".
* An interesting post on theodicy at "Prosblogion"; Jeremy's comment and trackbacked post are dead-on.
* Timothy Burke at "Easily Distracted" has an excellent post on Live8; the general thought I thought myself (while watching Ah-Ha; honestly, I didn't even know they were still alive, but they looked like they were doing well; and "Take on Me" still sounds horrible without studio editing), but Burke has a knack for clarifying issues like this. (HT: Cliopatria.)
* "Death in the Afternoon" rightly points out that the Daleks are The Doctor's most terrifying enemies. Indeed, despite the fact they look like modified garbage cans, they are the sci-fi baddies I would least like to tangle with. The Daleks are not merely ruthless but ruthlessly ruthless. They are also, unlike many sci-fi baddies, very good at long-term strategy (not so great when they have to think on their feet, though); and they are the only species who were capable of fighting to mutual destruction the Time Lords of Gallifrey. The Daleks are also an interesting sci-fi concept, in that they are independent of the show itself: the intellectual property rights to the Dalek concept are partly owned by the estate of Terry Nation, who created them, and the BBC has to go through immensely complicated negotiations and pay a rather hefty price whenever it decides to use them (so much so that the Daleks, who recently made an appearance on the season finale of the new Doctor Who series, almost didn't: in original negotiations they failed to agree on terms). The BBC has through the years had to find a medium between the cheaper and easier alternative of not using them (which irritates fans, who have always been fascinated by the Daleks and want more of them) and the fan-desired alternative of using them often (which is financially prohibitive).
* Macht guests at "The Evangelical Outpost" with an interesting post on technology. I suppose I'm neither quite instrumentalist or substantivist; what constitutes technology as technology is a set of intentions and conventions. As a result I agree with a number of things in Macht's post. Incidentally, technology is a good reason why the move in philosophy of science from the 1930s & 1940s emphasis on social and ethical aspects of science and society to the more technical (and, with rare exceptions, completely useless) confirmation-and-justification babble that has largely occupied it since was a sort of fall from grace. Whatever might be said against the Vienna Circle (and many things might be said), they were entirely right that the ethics and politics of science is of crucial value and importance.
[Kathleen Okruhlik has a good article in Hypatia (2004) called "Logical Empiricism, Feminism, and Neurath's Auxiliary Motive" that, among other things, notes how the devaluation of values in philosophy of science has been systematically used to block feminist critiques of scientific and technological practice and how a return to the more values-oriented view could have fruitful results. Even if you have no sympathy with Neurath's Marxism, it's a worthwhile read; Neurath's work on the 'auxiliary motive', despite some oddities, is an interesting place to start for people interested in the way valuation works in science, and his work on the problem of how to convey complicated statistical information to ordinary people is fascinating work that needs to be developed.]
* Chris has a post at "Mixing Memory" sorting out different strands of research that are called "evolutionary psychology".
* UPDATE: Rebecca gives Cecil Alexander's 1889 translation of the Lorica of St. Patrick.
"Well, we won't quarrel about a word," said the other, pleasantly.
"Why on earth not?" said MacIan, with a sudden asperity. "Why shouldn't we quarrel about a word? What is the good of words if they aren't important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn't any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If you're not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about?"
So if you haven't already, read the book, you chimpanzees. And I use that word in a nice way.
* At "Houyhnhnm Land" I've posted on an important issue in the philosophy of vision, the Horizontal Moon; or, as Sharon calls it, Mooning with Brandon. (An interesting fact: for most people the illusion ceases if they stand with their back to the moon, bend over, and look at it through their legs.) You can leave comments about it here, if the impulse takes you; if you catch any errors I've overlooked, please let me know.
* Around July 4, it's always a good thing to take a little time out for a relevant blogospheric classic, What Should Christians Think of the Fourth of July? at "Parableman".
* An interesting post on theodicy at "Prosblogion"; Jeremy's comment and trackbacked post are dead-on.
* Timothy Burke at "Easily Distracted" has an excellent post on Live8; the general thought I thought myself (while watching Ah-Ha; honestly, I didn't even know they were still alive, but they looked like they were doing well; and "Take on Me" still sounds horrible without studio editing), but Burke has a knack for clarifying issues like this. (HT: Cliopatria.)
* "Death in the Afternoon" rightly points out that the Daleks are The Doctor's most terrifying enemies. Indeed, despite the fact they look like modified garbage cans, they are the sci-fi baddies I would least like to tangle with. The Daleks are not merely ruthless but ruthlessly ruthless. They are also, unlike many sci-fi baddies, very good at long-term strategy (not so great when they have to think on their feet, though); and they are the only species who were capable of fighting to mutual destruction the Time Lords of Gallifrey. The Daleks are also an interesting sci-fi concept, in that they are independent of the show itself: the intellectual property rights to the Dalek concept are partly owned by the estate of Terry Nation, who created them, and the BBC has to go through immensely complicated negotiations and pay a rather hefty price whenever it decides to use them (so much so that the Daleks, who recently made an appearance on the season finale of the new Doctor Who series, almost didn't: in original negotiations they failed to agree on terms). The BBC has through the years had to find a medium between the cheaper and easier alternative of not using them (which irritates fans, who have always been fascinated by the Daleks and want more of them) and the fan-desired alternative of using them often (which is financially prohibitive).
* Macht guests at "The Evangelical Outpost" with an interesting post on technology. I suppose I'm neither quite instrumentalist or substantivist; what constitutes technology as technology is a set of intentions and conventions. As a result I agree with a number of things in Macht's post. Incidentally, technology is a good reason why the move in philosophy of science from the 1930s & 1940s emphasis on social and ethical aspects of science and society to the more technical (and, with rare exceptions, completely useless) confirmation-and-justification babble that has largely occupied it since was a sort of fall from grace. Whatever might be said against the Vienna Circle (and many things might be said), they were entirely right that the ethics and politics of science is of crucial value and importance.
[Kathleen Okruhlik has a good article in Hypatia (2004) called "Logical Empiricism, Feminism, and Neurath's Auxiliary Motive" that, among other things, notes how the devaluation of values in philosophy of science has been systematically used to block feminist critiques of scientific and technological practice and how a return to the more values-oriented view could have fruitful results. Even if you have no sympathy with Neurath's Marxism, it's a worthwhile read; Neurath's work on the 'auxiliary motive', despite some oddities, is an interesting place to start for people interested in the way valuation works in science, and his work on the problem of how to convey complicated statistical information to ordinary people is fascinating work that needs to be developed.]
* Chris has a post at "Mixing Memory" sorting out different strands of research that are called "evolutionary psychology".
* UPDATE: Rebecca gives Cecil Alexander's 1889 translation of the Lorica of St. Patrick.
A Rant
When will people recognize the claim, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" for what it is: a shoddy cliché, with no rigorously specifiable meaning, based on a confused and unimpressive philosophical analysis of the way evidence actually supports claims, relying for its 'ring of truth' more on rhetorical parallelism than on serious thought about evidential reasoning, used by lazy-minded people as an excuse for not doing the hard rational work of real meta-evidentiary analysis? Will we really have to wait until they start realizing that it's the sort of nonsensical stupidity that can be turned against any position, any time, for any reason?
End of Rant.
End of Rant.
An Academic Meme
Miriam Burnstein sent this my way; it's interestingly different meme than the sorts that usually go around. Unfortunately, most of my answers are very dull; I really should get more.
(1) Imagine it’s 2015. You are visiting the library at a major research university. You go over to a computer terminal (or whatever it is they use in 2015) that gives you immediate access to any book or journal article on any topic you want. What do you look up? In other words, what do you hope somebody will have written in the meantime?
I have an affection for brilliant philosophical minds who have been (in my opinion) unfairly overlooked by academics, so this is fairly easy -- I can name three things off the top of my head:
(a) a thorough study of Lady Mary Shepherd's theory of causation;
(b) a thorough study of William Whewell's moral philosophy, with particular focus on his arguments against the utilitarians;
(c) a critical and annotated edition of the works of Mary Astell, or, at the very least, a well-edited edition of The Christian Religion As Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church of England, her major work.
(2) What is the strangest thing you’ve ever heard or seen at a conference? No names, please. Refer to “Professor X” or “Ms. Y” if you must. Double credit if you were directly affected. Triple if you then said or did something equally weird.
I really can't think of anything, unfortunately; but I tend to be so oblivious at conferences that I probably wouldn't notice anything strange if it happened right in front of me.
(3) Name a writer, scholar, or otherwise worthy person you admire so much that meeting him or her would probably reduce you to awestruck silence.
I'm not inclined to regard anyone who hasn't been dead for a hundred years with awe, and I can assure you that if I met someone who had been dead for a hundred years, my response would not be awestruck silence. But I suppose the closest case would be Gyula Klima. We'll have that tested in Fall term; he'll be at a medieval seminar here at UT.
(4) What are two or three blogs or other Web sites you often read that don’t seem to be on many people’s radar?
The Scholasticum, which is devoted to scholastic philosophy and theology, is the most obvious thing that comes to mind. There are also some good Biblioblogs, like Hypotyposeis and Ralph the Sacred River that tend to be overlooked by people who don't read much in that area.
I like receiving memes, but I don't generally pass them on much, any more. But anyone can carry on the torch, if they so wish.
(1) Imagine it’s 2015. You are visiting the library at a major research university. You go over to a computer terminal (or whatever it is they use in 2015) that gives you immediate access to any book or journal article on any topic you want. What do you look up? In other words, what do you hope somebody will have written in the meantime?
I have an affection for brilliant philosophical minds who have been (in my opinion) unfairly overlooked by academics, so this is fairly easy -- I can name three things off the top of my head:
(a) a thorough study of Lady Mary Shepherd's theory of causation;
(b) a thorough study of William Whewell's moral philosophy, with particular focus on his arguments against the utilitarians;
(c) a critical and annotated edition of the works of Mary Astell, or, at the very least, a well-edited edition of The Christian Religion As Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church of England, her major work.
(2) What is the strangest thing you’ve ever heard or seen at a conference? No names, please. Refer to “Professor X” or “Ms. Y” if you must. Double credit if you were directly affected. Triple if you then said or did something equally weird.
I really can't think of anything, unfortunately; but I tend to be so oblivious at conferences that I probably wouldn't notice anything strange if it happened right in front of me.
(3) Name a writer, scholar, or otherwise worthy person you admire so much that meeting him or her would probably reduce you to awestruck silence.
I'm not inclined to regard anyone who hasn't been dead for a hundred years with awe, and I can assure you that if I met someone who had been dead for a hundred years, my response would not be awestruck silence. But I suppose the closest case would be Gyula Klima. We'll have that tested in Fall term; he'll be at a medieval seminar here at UT.
(4) What are two or three blogs or other Web sites you often read that don’t seem to be on many people’s radar?
The Scholasticum, which is devoted to scholastic philosophy and theology, is the most obvious thing that comes to mind. There are also some good Biblioblogs, like Hypotyposeis and Ralph the Sacred River that tend to be overlooked by people who don't read much in that area.
I like receiving memes, but I don't generally pass them on much, any more. But anyone can carry on the torch, if they so wish.
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