Just back from a 4-day conference held at the Catholic University of America, hosted by its Center for Law, Philosophy, and Culture, entitled, “A Common Morality for a Global Age: In Gratitude for What We are Given.” Conference speakers included Cardinal Angelo Scola (by video), Hadley Arkes, Kenneth Schmitz, Stanely Hauerwas, John Polkinghorne, Robert George,…
…those who know binary and those who don’t. Russell Jacoby knows binary and likes it! For Jacoby, there are two kinds of people: those, like Jacoby, who think in binary oppositions, and those who think that things are (or ought to be made) more complicated. Here’s an example of what we’re talking about: In the…
Part One: Metaphysics as the Science of Presuppositions R.G. Collingwood, in his An Essay on Metaphysics (1940), attempts to defend metaphysics from attacks upon it leveled by early analytic philosophers. To make his defense, Collingwood has to separate two Aristotelian propositions regarding “first philosophy.” On page 11 of his text, Collingwood notes them: 1. Metaphysics…
Global warming? Academics are to blame! At least that’s what Mark Pedelty wants us to consider, at least insofar as we academics travel a lot. Some evidence: Ian Roberts and Fiona Godlee published an editorial in the British Medical Journal on the “carbon footprint of medical conferences.” They determined that flights destined for the annual…
That’s just what you won’t get with Eric G. Wilson’s essay, “In Praise of Melancholy,” published in a recent edition of The Chronicle Review. This essay is adapted from Wilson’s new book, Against Happiness, which, for his sake, I suppose I hope does not sell. Unfortunately–for him, I guess–I think it might do fairly well,…
It is possible that Russell Jacoby has me dead to rights. In his IMHO column in the Chronicle Review, dated January 11, 2008 (”Big Brains, Small Impact“), Jacoby reflects on the 20 years since the publication of his book, The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe. In sum, despite sometimes fair criticism, Jacoby…
That’s just the kind of question Frank Furedi tells us we’re asking too much but not asking well-enough. It seems we have gotten scared witless by the specters of global warming and jihadism–so much so that we cannot focus on much more widely significant problems like the potential for a global recession, which would affect…
Ted Honderich and Colin McGinn, two well-known academic philosophers*, are engaged in a meaningless public feud, bringing further “glory” to a profession that has become largely irrelevant, thanks in part to the kind of philosophy pursued by the likes of Ted Honderich and Colin McGinn. Stuart Jeffries reports in the Guardian that Honderich wrote a…
New Perspectives Quarterly offers a point-counterpoint with Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan on recent examples of “Islamic justice” (I’m never sure whether to put the scarequotes on “Islamic,” “justice,” or both in situations like these): the rape victim who has to face the lash for “mingling;” the teacher who faces the lash for letting…
Sam Harris is taking time off from saying superficial (but highly lucrative) things about religion to saying less lucrative but equally superficial things about neuroscience. Time reports his new paper suggests that within the brain pan, at least, the distinction between objective and subjective is not so clear-cut. Although more complex assertions may get analyzed in so-called “higher”…