Charity

Chicago oral surgeon feeds the homeless twice a week.

The Pink Gang

Philosopher Roderick T. Long on India's feminist vigilantes.

Bryan Caplan is right

Libertarian Economist as Civil Rights Advocate:

If the NYPD bombed Harlem to kill one rampaging murderer, we'd condemn the NYPD agents as murderers. But if the USAF bombs a town in Afghanistan to kill one rampaging murderer, we forgive the bombers - or cheer them on. If the state of Alabama made it a crime for blacks to take white collar jobs, we'd damn them as racist monsters. But if the entire U.S. government makes it a crime for Mexican citizens to take any U.S. job whatsoever, we accept and justify the policy. What's the difference between "fighting crime" and "fighting terrorism"? Between "Jim Crow" and "protecting our borders"? The mere fact that the victims are foreigners, so up is down and wrong is right.

Gruss von Krampus

The Atlantic reports on Saint Nicholas' evil, Alpine companion.

Inside the mind of Gawker editor Neetzan Zimmerman

Melding together man and machine for a better tomorrow (or, how to survive in the brave new economy).

"The Roots of Buddhist Romanticism"

Thanissaro's "The Roots of Buddhist Romanticism" an excellent appraisal of the appropriation of Buddhism by modern Western societies. The only limitation is that Thanissaro does not also discuss the role of Enlightenment thinking in Western interpretations of Buddhism. But most of my job when teaching Buddhism to students, either as a philosophy or as a religion, is in disabusing them of their tendency to interpret Buddhism through the lens of Western Romanticism and its sundry offshoots.

Schooling higher ed

Part of the problem seems to be not enough money spent on the core mission--education.

Ericailcane

Italian street artist.

Did too many regulations doom implementation of the Affordable Care Act?

So argues economist Tyler Cowen:

For instance, the tangle known as government procurement has exacerbated problems with the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges. The required formal processes made it difficult to hire the best possible talent, led to nightmare organizational charts and resulted in blurred lines of accountability. It’s hard to turn on a dime and fix such problems overnight, no matter how pressing the need.

Chomsky on Kennedy

Noam Chomsky offers an unflattering portrait of John F. Kennedy, highlighting the aggressive military actions and lack of commitment to civil rights which characterized Kennedy's presidency, and discussing the cult of his memory which has grown up since his assassination.

A Vintage of Canaan

Archaeologists announced a discovery of an ancient wine cellar which stored vast quantities of Canaanite wine:

A chemical analysis of residues left in the three-foot-tall jars detected organic traces of acids that are common components of all wine, as well as ingredients popular in ancient winemaking. These included honey, mint, cinnamon bark, juniper berries and resins used as a preservative. The recipe was similar to medicinal wines used for 2,000 years in ancient Egypt and probably tasted something like retsina or other resinous Greek wines today.

In Memoriam

A post in honor of my dear friend, Bob Bashore (1926-2013), who passed away last week after a brief illness. 

Bob was an English professor at Bowling Green State University who specialized in 19th century American literature; he was especially interested in Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville. 

If Bob were still with us, I would have told him today about an article I recently read, about Western Buddhists' interpretation of the Pali Canon. In "The Buddha via the Bible", Thanissaro Bhikkhu argues persuasively that Western Buddhists interpret the Pali Canon through the lens of the Romantics' and Transcendentalists' reading of the Christian Bible.

Countdown to 2150 AD

Haw Par Villa Theme Park in Signapore

A vivid depiction of the Buddhist hell realms. 

The shape of things to come

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, yet with stranger eons, even death may die." -- H. P. Lovecraft

Meco

I recently learned that record producer Meco (Dominico Monardo) made a disco version of the Star Wars theme that went platinum, and a dance remix of the Ewok celebration ("Yub-Nub!") song.

Michael Wolf

German-born artist Michael Wolf's photo series 'The Real Toy Story'.

Pamela Colman Smith

Visionary artist Pamela Colman Smith; half-Jamaican, half-American, raised in England, illustrator of the Smith-Waite Tarot.

The Jeweler Philosopher

The Guardian has run a profile of philosophical charlatan David Birnbaum. 

Birnbaum is a famous New York jeweler who claims to have solved 'the mystery of existence'. According to this piece in The Guardian, Birnbaum has made fraudulent claims regarding the endorsement of his work by professional philosophers, and has illegally used the Harvard imprint for his books.

Atlas Moved to Chile

Feminist and individualist anarchist Wendy McElroy is moving to Galt's Gulch in Chile.

This is surprising for two reasons.

Firstly, while individualist anarchists and Objectivists both value liberty, the former are vocal critics of state capitalism, while the latter are defenders of it. It's not immediately clear that living among a band of Objectivists in Chile is going to be preferable to living in Canada (McElroy's current home).

Secondly, there's a "Galt's Gulch" in Chile?!

Left Libertarians vs. Right Libertarians (or, the Mixed Legacy of Murray Rothbard)

There is a great series of posts at Bleeding Heart Libertarianism about the debate among right-leaning and left-leaning libertarians about the value of Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell's contributions to the movement. Jason Brennan is (rightly) critical of some of Rothbard's philosophical views, and of Rothbard's creation of an alliance between libertarians and paleo-conservatives, which resulted (inter alia) in the infamous race-baiting newsletters ghost-written by Lew Rockwell for Ron Paul.

Matt Zwolinski agrees with Brennan about the damage Rothbard did to libertarianism by forging an alliance with paleo-conservatives, but he has also written a list of seven positive contributions Rothbard made to the broader libertarian movement. I agree for the most part with Zwolinski's assessment; Rothbard's arguments for individualist anarchism are flawed, but worth taking seriously, and it was reading these arguments that helped push me toward "radical libertarianism" (for lack of a better term). Given his ill-starred later attempt to forge a strategic alliance with racists and other paleo-conservatives, I find it fascinating that Rothbard is quite clear in some of his earlier work about the potentially radical implications of old-school Lockean liberalism. Here are some quotations from Rothbard's "Confiscation and the Homestead Principle," first published in The Libertarian Forum on June 15, 1969, and now available on mises.org:

What of the myriad of corporations which are integral parts of the military-industrial complex, which not only get over half or sometimes virtually all their revenue from the government but also participate in mass murder? What are their credentials to "private" property? Surely less than zero. As eager lobbyists for these contracts and subsidies, as co-founders of the garrison state, they deserve confiscation and reversion of their property to thegenuine private sector as rapidly as possible. To say that their "private" property must be respected is to say that the property stolen by the horsethief and the murdered [sic] must be "respected". 

. . . .  

And there is another consideration. Dow Chemical, for example, has been heavily criticized for making napalm for the U.S. military machine. The percentage of its sales coming from napalm is undoubtedly small, so that on a percentage basis the company may not seem very guilty; but napalm is and can only be an instrument of mass murder, and therefore Dow Chemical is heavily up to its neck in being an accessory and hence a co-partner in the mass murder in Vietnam. No percentage of sales, however small, can absolve its guilt. 

This brings us to Karl's point about slaves. One of the tragic aspects of the emancipation of the serfs in Russia in 1861 was that while the serfs gained their personal freedom, the land—their means of production and of life, their land was retained under the ownership of their feudal masters. The land should have gone to the serfs themselves, for under the homestead principle they had tilled the land and deserved its title. Furthermore, the serfs were entitled to a host of reparations from their masters for the centuries of oppression and exploitation. The fact that the land remained in the hands of the lords paved the way inexorably for the Bolshevik Revolution, since the revolution that had freed the serfs remained unfinished. 

The same is true of the abolition of slavery in the United States. The slaves gained their freedom, it is true, but the land, the plantations that they had tilled and therefore deserved to own under the homestead principle, remained in the hands of their former masters. Furthermore, no reparations were granted the slaves for their oppression out of the hides of their masters. Hence the abolition of slavery remained unfinished, and the seeds of a new revolt have remained to intensify to the present day. Hence, the great importance of the shift in Negro demands from greater welfare handouts to "reparations", reparations for the years of slavery and exploitation and for the failure to grant the Negroes their land, the failure to heed the Radical abolitionist's call for "40 acres and a mule" to the former slaves. In many cases, moreover, the old plantations and the heirs and descendants of the former slaves can be identified, and the reparations can become highly specific indeed.

You don't hear many Lockean rights based arguments for reparations for the descendants of slaves, but arguably Rothbard is right on the money, and his points about Russian serfs and war profiteers are also worth taking seriously. Some libertarians are so identified with the right wing, because of the recent history of politics in this country, that it makes it difficult for them to see the sometimes radical implications of a traditional liberal property rights regime. This was not lost on 19th century classical liberals such as John Stuart Mill, but for historical reasons (ably summarized here by Steve Horwitz) many contemporary libertarians identify more with the right than with the left, even though libertarianism is arguably an inherently liberal and progressive ideology.

Reasonableness of Christianity Round-Up

Is Christianity reasonable? The answer depends largely on what one means by 'reasonable': strongly rationally justified; somewhat rationally justified; permissible in public political debate and decision; meriting serious rational engagement. BGSU philosophy professor Kevin Vallier argues that Christianity is reasonable, and his initial argument has brought forth a bevy of responses.

At first, I took Vallier to be arguing for the weak thesis that Christianity merits serious rational engagement by non-Christian philosophers. But now, I think he might be arguing for one of the stronger theses involving rational justification. If he chooses the weak thesis, this is much easier to argue for, but its implications are less interesting and controversial (most atheists don't want Christians banned from public policy debates, for example). If he chooses one of the stronger theses, he will have a much more difficult time mounting a successful argument (for the reasons noted below by fellow BGSU philosophy professor Richard Yetter)!

1. Kevin Vallier's initial argument in support of the reasonableness of Christianity.

2. Richard Yetter's reply.

3. Jason Brennan's post about some of the different senses of the word 'reasonable' in play. Brennan notes that 'reasonable' has a technical meaning in the political philosophy literature that might be escaping some people engaged in this debate.

4. Vallier clarifies what he means by 'reasonable'.

5. Vallier's tries to prove that Christianity is reasonable.

To be continued!

Links for Writers

1. The adverb is not your friend.

2. Creative sleep.

3. Lee Martin's tips for fiction and nonfiction writers.

Yet Another Abuse of Power by a "Spiritual" Teacher

"Bikram yoga" guru charged with sexual assault.

"Grit" Predicts Success More Than I.Q.

A summary of the research on motivation in student success by psychologist Angela Duckworth.

Among other findings, Duckworth's 12-point "Grit" self-test predicts the success of cadets at West Point better than the battery of measures developed by West Point for just that purpose.

Astonishing Size Comparison of Every Sci-Fi Spaceship Ever

Well, almost every.

Steven Seagal is a Reincarnated Lama

Surprised I didn't already know about this, but action film star Steven Seagal (shown above with his good buddy Vladimir Putin) was declared to be a tulku (reincarnated lama) in February of 1997 by someone who should know (another lama). Brief discussion here on wikipedia.

Halloween Costume Idea for Two

I go as Doctor Theopolis, you go as Twiki. (For three: he goes as sci-fi Gary Coleman.)

Ripples on the Ocean

1. "Speculative Non-Buddhism": An intellectually stimulating but mean-spirited and petty critique of mainstream Western Buddhism. Recommended.

2. "Meditation and mindfulness are the new rage in Silicon Valley." Words to send shivers down your spine.

3.  When Buddhists and non-Buddhists attack. Harsh words in the comments thread between meditation teacher Kenneth Ford and his "non-Buddhist" (disgruntled Buddhist?) adversaries.

4. Biting "non-Buddhist" satire of the commercialization of Buddhist spirituality.

60s and 70s Science Fiction Madness

To prove: If you pursue the absurd far enough, eventually you break through to the sublime.

1. "Barbarella" (1968).

2. John Carpeneter's freshman directorial effort, "Dark Star" (1974).

3. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century theatrical pilot opening: Buck dreams of space disco queen Erin Grey for 500 years while adrift in space.

4. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: Twiki falls in love.

5. "Starcrash" (1979).

QED.

Tyler Cowen on Growing Income Inequality and Our Unequal Future

1. Cowen's new book on our unequal future: "Average Is Over." Economist review of "Average Is Over." Daily Beast review of "Average Is Over."

2. "The great reset": In 2012, real median household income was 8.3% lower than in 2007.

3. New results on labor market polarization.

Strange Synergy

1. Tyler Cowen's reflections on the economy and society in the new world of big data and ubiquitous computing.

2. "Billy Mordor"'s reflections on cyberpunk and the end of golden-age sci-fi: technology transforms our social problems, it does not solve them.

More Wisdom of the Desert

"One of the elders used to say: In the beginning when we got together we used to talk about something that was good for our souls, and we went up and up, and ascended even to heaven. But now we get together and spend our time in criticizing everything, and we drag one another down into the abyss." (From The Wisdom of the Desert [selections from the Verba Seniorum], Thomas Merton, translator, p. 95.)

The Wisdom of the Desert

"The story is told that one of the elders lay dying in Scete, and the brethren surrounded his bed, dressed him in the shroud, and began to weep. But he opened his eyes and laughed. He laughed another time, and then a third time. When the brethren saw this, they asked him, saying: Tell us, Father, why you are laughing while we weep? He said to them: I laughed the first time because you fear death. I laughed the second time because you are not ready for death. And the third time I laughed because from labours I go to my rest. As soon as he said this, he closed his eyes in death." (Thomas Merton, trans., The Wisdom of the Desert [Selections from the Verba Seniorum], p. 105.)

Christian Mantra Meditation

"If you like, you can have this reaching out wrapped up and enfolded in a single word. So as to have a better grasp of it, take just a little word, one syllable rather than of two, for the shorter it is, the better it is in agreement with this exercise of the spirit. Such a one is the word "God" or the word "love." Choose which one you prefer or any other according to your liking--the word of one syllable that you like the best. Fasten this word to your heart, so that whatever happens, it will never go away. This word is to be your shield and your spear, whether you are riding in peace or in war. With this word you are to beat upon this cloud and this darkness above you. With this word you are to strike down every kind of thought under the cloud of forgetting, so that if any thought should press upon you and ask you what you would have, answer it with no other word but this one. If the thought should offer you, out of its great learning, to analyze that word for you and to tell you its meanings, say to the thought that you want to keep it whole and not taken apart of unfastened. If you will hold fast to this purpose, you may be sure that the thought will not stay for very long. And why? Because you will not allow it to feed itself on the sort of sweet meditations that we mentioned before." (The Cloud of Unknowing, ch. 5.)

The Cloud of Unknowing's recommendation to use a suitable word of a single syllable as a tool of contemplation bears a striking resemblance to the use of short mantras in Hindu and Buddhist meditation. The author of the Cloud permits personal discretion in the choice of a word for contemplation, unlike in some Hindu and Buddhist meditation traditions, which prescribe particular words (either for everyone, or to particular individuals).

The purpose of repeating and focusing on a single, spiritually appropriate word seems similar in all of these traditions: to enable the mind to loosen its attachment to particular objects of sensation, thoughts, and feelings, and to increase the focus and power of the contemplation or concentration exercise, which can eventually result in the transcendence of the ego and the experience of sacred reality--variously conceived as God, Atman, or Nirvana.

This resemblance should not, of course, blind us to the very real theoretical and practical differences between these religious traditions. But the resemblance is striking, and may come as a surprise to many; even the Cloud's description of how contemplation of a single word can serve to "strike down every kind of thought" is strongly reminiscent of Zen texts which advocate abandoning "dualistic" thought through the practice of repeating "mu", or through other koan work or zazen techniques. Indeed, the central theme of The Cloud of Unknowing is that of the thought-transcending mystery which surrounds the sacred or the divine (hence the work's eponymous image, which is based on the cloud surrounding Moses during his period of revelation on Mount Sinai), a theme also present in Hindu and Buddhist mystic texts.

Why did all of these traditions insist upon the inability of thought or reason to penetrate the sacred or the divine? This, despite the fact that they all have intricate theologies or metaphysical theories which attempt to reduce the sacred to a comprehensible form. And, granted that the sacred is in some sense a mystery, when a person uses mantra meditation or some other technique to climb the mountain and experience the sacred, what does he find there? There is no way to know except to climb the mountain, to follow in the path of those who have gone before. What will you see?  

Links

1. Review of Katy Butler's Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death. 

2. "Noise is the supreme archenemy of all serious thinkers."

3. A thoughtful critique of Reza Aslan's Zealot.

4. Philosophy has a sexual harassment problem.

5.  Review of Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.

6. Sarah Stillman's stunning piece in The New Yorker on the injustices of civil asset forfeiture.

7. National Geographic profile of amaranth.

8. Progress towards explaining near death experiences.

9. Apps for pets. 

10. Never give up!

The Evolution of an SF Archetype

1. C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith;

2. George Lucas' Han Solo;

3. Joss Whedon's Malcolm Reynolds.

Critique of Barbara Frederickson's Happiness Research

Debunking Barbara Fredrickson's happiness research: it's a maths problem. Fredrickson collected the wrong kind of data to use with her co-author Losada's differential equations, and Losada's math is gibberish, according to a new paper by Brown, Sokal, and Friedman. (Hat tip to Marginal Revolution; Will Wilkinson blogs the story.)

Georges de La Tour, Magdalene with the Smoking Flame

Another spiritual and artistic masterpiece by de La Tour.

Georges de La Tour, The Penitent Magdalene

Influenced by Caravaggio's chiaroscuro technique, Georges de La Tour made it his own, creating religious themed works of great depth and power (in addition to his more light-hearted but still psychologically revealing genre paintings). The subject matter of The Penitent Magdalene makes its connection to the Christian contemplative tradition clear. Mary Magdalene, in the words of The Cloud of Unknowing, "stands for all habitual sinners truly converted and called to the grace of contemplation" (ch. 22).

Incidentally, this view of Mary Magdalene has its origin in Luke 10:38-42: "Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’" The "one thing" was later interpreted as God; Martha became a symbol of the active life, Mary of the contemplative life.

The Cloud of Unknowing, an anonymous 14th century English text which contains advice for Christian contemplatives, also makes use of the mirror imagery which can be found in de La Tour's piece: "God's word, whether written or spoken, is like a mirror. The spiritual eye of your soul is your reason. Your spiritual face is your consciousness. And just as your bodily eyes cannot see where the dirty mark is on your bodily face without a mirror, or without someone else telling you where it is, so with your spiritual faculties. . . . It follows, then, that when a person sees in the bodily or the spiritual mirror, or knows by the information he gets from someone else, goes to the well to wash it off--and not before" (ch. 35).

Students of Zen Buddhism will recall the use of the mind as mirror metaphor, which originates in Laozi's Daodejing, but which is taken up in Zen works such as Hui-Neng's Platform Sutra. However, in Zen, the mirror stands for the mind itself, which must be cleansed through meditation so that it reflects the world and one's true nature more clearly; in The Cloud of Unknowing, the mirror represents the word of God, not the mind, though it performs the similar function of enabling one to see clearly into one's true nature (in this case, for the purpose of sussing out sin).

The Great Delusion

The Great Delusion is the thought that now is not the moment of awakening.

In Search of Moebius

BBC documentary on the famous French comic artist.

Links

1. Amazing Bowling Green artist Dennis Wojtkiewicz.

2. Alchemy Goods: "upcycing" bags etc. from used bicycle tires.

3. Kenyan Reality TV: advice for farmers, served up with politeness.

4. Drinking coffee lowers suicide risk. And here is a summary of recent research on the health benefits of coffee.

5. David Sloan Wilson on how evolution can reform economics. And here is a page with articles from a special issue of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization on this topic.

6. Who's who in the history of Western mysticism.

7. 16-year old pitching sensation Tomohiro Anraku, and the culture of Japanese baseball: "Only more throwing will allow Anraku to perfect his mechanics, and only perfect mechanics will prevent injury."

8.  Why singular "they" is grammatically correct.

9. Two book reviews for the price of one: on occultism during the Enlightenment. 

10. A summary of the evidence on supplemental vitamins and health: vitamins do not improve health, and seem to increase the risk of some cancers. This article also contains a profile of the role of Nobel-prize winner Linus Pauling's shameful role in spreading misinformation about the alleged benefits of vitamin supplements.

11. On German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk's reimagining of the Nietzschean Uebermensch: the Superman as supreme self-trainer, with Jesus and Socrates (Nietzsche's blood enemies) as prime exemplars.

12. Elizabeth Anderson on the relevance of 17th century Levellers and 19th century abolitionists to contemporary debates about equality; e.g., “An Arrow against all Tyrants, shot from the prison of Newgate into the prerogative bowels of the arbitrary House of Lords and all other usurpers and tyrants whatsoever” (1646).

13. Discovery of a 3,000 year old palace reignites debate about the historical nature of the kingdom of Israel.

14. David Lynch was so traumatized by the song "It's a Small World" that he insists on referring to it as "Flappy" rather than its true name.

Links

1. Noah Smith explains why neither the New Keynesian model nor Real Business Cycle theory can explain Japan's economic situation.

2. The Zimmerman case as one of overreaction and misinterpretation.

3. The reconsolidation theory of memory: memories are remade when they are recalled.

4. Barriers to increasing quinoa production.

5. U.S. STEM graduate programs depend for their existence on foreign students.

6. Republicans and the farm bill: "it doesn't count as spending as long as it redistributes upwards."

7. Henry James was not anti-immigrant.

8. Peak water (peak agriculture)? And this.

9. The "living rock".

10. Lou Reed reviews Kanye West's "Yeezus". 

11. The problem with clutter.

12. Against multitasking.

13. Scientist Carl Hart on myths about drugs.

14. "I find it hard to talk about what I love. Yet dislike summons an instant legion of words and sets them to work."

Belated Thoughts on the Anniversary of Our Nation's Birth

On this celebration of our nation's birth, it is fitting to celebrate the founders as much for what they DIDN'T do as for what they did. Consider these three great omissions by General George Washington, after the war had ended and the Articles of Confederation had been replaced with the new Constitution: he had no great ambition to be president of the United States, but evidently sought and held the office out of a sense of duty; he did not plunder the public purse while in office (as can be witnessed even today by visiting his humble estate, Mount Vernon--its very plainness serves but to embellish his honor); he did not cling to power once his term was over, but retired to private life. 

How many leaders of violent revolutions can boast of such a humble legacy? Although I am an anti-Federalist, and believe that the federal government instituted by the Constitution has ever had an unfortunate tendency toward tyranny at home and imperialism abroad, one can surely respect the Founders for the numerous crimes which they did not commit, but which were in their power.

Lives of the Philosophers

Charles Sanders Peirce:

"From 1879 until 1884, Peirce maintained a second job teaching logic in the Department of Mathematics at Johns Hopkins University. During that period the Department of Mathematics was headed by the famous mathematician J. J. Sylvester. This job suddenly evaporated for reasons that are apparently connected with the fact that Peirce's second wife was a Gypsy, and was a Gypsy moreover with whom Peirce had allegedly cohabited before marriage."

Links

1. Interview with Clive James on his ill health, estranged marriage, and recent translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (conceived in part as an amatory missive to his estranged wife, a Dante scholar).

2. Copyright makes books and music disappear.

3. Understanding evil: interviewing Japanese war criminals.

Memento Mori

Sancta Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini (Rome, Italy).

Links

1. On 3D printing as a "gateway drug", and other thoughts on digital manufacturing.

2. Book review of My Lunches with Orson: the mad genius of Orson Welles.

3. Kevin Vallier responds to Robin Corey on Hayek and Nietzsche.

4. An economist on 'the arithmetic' of space travel.

5. Lane Craig, theist philosopher and rhetorician extraordinaire.

Sic Fortuna dicit

Sic Fortuna regina mundi dicit:

"So am I alone to be forbidden to exercise my rights? The heavens are allowed to engender bright days, and then to shroud them in dark nights. The year is permitted at one time to adorn the face of the earth with blossoms and fruits, at another time to plague it with rain clouds and freezing cold. It is the sea's right at one moment to smile indulgently with glassy waters, and at another to bristle with storms and breakers. So when people's wishes are unfulfilled, will they confine me to that consistent behaviour which is alien to my character? This power that I wield comes naturally to me; this is my perennial sport. I turn my wheel on its whirling course, and take delight in switching the base to the summit, and the summit to the base. So mount upward, if you will, but on condition that you do not regard yourself as ill-treated if you plummet down when my humour so demands and takes its course."

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, I.2.8-10 (P. G. Walsh, trans., Oxford University Press, 1999).

Noble silence

The orator distinguishes himself through speech--the philosopher, through remaining silent at the right time. (After Macrobius, Saturae, 7.1.11.)

Links

1. J. D. Salinger's spiritual life.

2. On Samantha Power: "you can be a media intellectual or government official, not both."

3. Meet Tim Green, professional liar.

A Dream

A dream is like life. It matters, every little bit, and is fundamentally unreal.

Remedious Varo. To Be Reborn. 1960.

Anthony Kenny reviews Alister McGrath on C. S. Lewis

Philosopher Anthony Kenny has written a TLS review of Alister McGrath's biography of C. S. Lewis, which discusses, among other things, Lewis' encounter with philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe (it did not go well for Lewis), critiques of his theological arguments, and his influence on contemporary American Christians:

'The final chapter of McGrath’s book, entitled “The Lewis Phenomenon”, charts the writer’s posthumous reputation, particularly in the United States. In the 1960s, Lewis almost vanished from view: by the end of the century he had become a cultural icon. Initially, in America, he was read only by Episcopalians, and was upbraided by Evangelicals as a smoker, a drinker and a liberal. But as barriers between mainstream Protestant denominations began to weaken, the author of Mere Christianity began to be admired across the spectrum. Roman Catholics, too, began to link him with G. K. Chesterton and Tolkien, and to consider him a fellow traveller. Most surprisingly, we are told, Lewis has now become the patron saint of American Evangelicalism. In a centenary article in 1998, its flagship periodical, Christianity Today, declared him “the Aquinas, the Augustine and the Aesop of contemporary evangelicalism”. Polls of American Christians, McGrath tells us, regularly cite Mere Christianity as the most influential religious book of the twentieth century.'

Who needs Augustine and Aquinas when you have Lewis? God help us all.

Towards the end of the review is a brief (and perforce too quick) critique of naturalism by Kenny; his confidence that "indeed there are signs that naturalism is collapsing under its own weight" seems premature, given the recent work of Owen Flanagan and other naturalists. Although Kenny is correct to point out some difficulties faced by naturalists in defending and defining their position, I do not believe there is a single philosophical position which does not face grave difficulties which must be overcome through careful argument.

Michael Ruse on Final Causes

Philosopher of biology Michael Ruse offers a critique of final causes, partially in response to recent work by philosopher Thomas Nagel.

Ruse's argument is not fully developed here but is compelling (he has argued persuasively and at greater length elsewhere in his published work). However, this piece is misleadingly titled, because from the fact there are no final causes it does not fully that life does not have a purpose. There is more than one sense of the word 'purpose'. Life could have a purpose in the sense of there being a reason to live or a source of meaning for living organisms, even if there is no purpose in the sense of a final cause. (I somehow doubt that Ruse himself chose the title for this piece; it may have been the editor of Aeon Magazine.)

Another minor problem with the piece: Ruse may have incorrectly characterized the relation between Plato and Aristotle's views on final causes. Ruse seems to draw a contrast between Aristotle's First Cause and Plato's demiurge, though the correct comparison is between Aristotle's First Cause and Plato's One (or The Good), both of which serve as the metaphysical ground of all other beings, and which do not function as divine craftsmen or designers in the conventional theistic sense.

Other than that, this is a great introduction to the issue for anyone who is still tempted by belief in final causes.

Links

1. Medieval pet names. 

2. Riots in China after teachers attempt to prevent student cheating on exams. "We want fairness. There is no fairness if you do not let us cheat."

3. The decline of the English major amid the persistent value of knowing how to write.

4. Big data in the humanities.

Stephen Fry on Loneliness and Suicide

I have long enjoyed Stephen Fry's acting, and he has impressed me with his knowledge of and appreciation for literature (for example, see his surprisingly astute commentary on Lawrence Stern's Tristram Shandy, in one of the special features on the "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story" DVD). In a recent blog post, he writes poignantly of loneliness and of a recent brush with self-slaughter:

"In the end loneliness is the most terrible and contradictory of my problems. I hate having only myself to come home to. If I have a book to write, it’s fine. I’m up so early in the morning that even I pop out for an early supper I am happy to go straight to bed, eager to be up and writing at dawn the next day. But otherwise…

"It’s not that I want a sexual partner, a long-term partner, someone to share a bed and a snuggle on the sofa with – although perhaps I do and in the past I have had and it has been joyful. But the fact is I value my privacy too. It’s a lose-lose matter. I don’t want to be alone, but I want to be left alone."

Links

1. A discussion of Jonathan Israel's controversial history of the 'radical Enlightenment', which highlights the role of philosopher Baruch Spinoza and a clandestine network of Spinozists in spreading the ideas of monism on the one hand and radical political freedom and equality on the other.

2. Neither barbequed nor grilled: Baltimore pit beef (slow cooked for around 2 hours over coals--less than traditional bbq, more than grilling). Traditionally served with horseradish on a roll.

3. Reading Tocqueville in Beijing. The political subtext: China's political elites seem to fear a revolution against their regime based in part on rising expectations--similar to what overthrew the Old Regime in France, according to Tocqueville's account.

4. Historical mystery solved: the recipe of Roman concrete revealed at last, and it could revolutionize construction and architecture. Roman concrete included lime and volcanic ash, which when combined with seawater produced a chemical reaction that created a powerful mortar.

5. Economist Felix Salmon summarizes some depressing facts about Detroit.

6. NYT review of "Confessions of a Sociopath," which purports to be a memoir of a noncriminal sociopath.

7. Hand-made Guinea-pig armor sells for $24,300.

Links

1. Sports pundits perform worse than a coin flip, and the more successful one's are more confident without being more correct in their predictions. 

2. The Soviet-era commercials of Harry Egipt. 

3. The Norwegian slow-tv movement, as exemplified by a world-record breaking 30 hour continuous interview with crime novelist Hans Olav Lahlum.

4. Join Wall Street to save the world?

5. "Yukio Ohyama has devoted his entire life to photographing Mt. Fuji."

6. The art of book-stacking in Japanese book stores.

7. Ask the Past: advice from old books.

8. New York Times review of Joss Whedon's adaptation of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing"; filmed on a shoestring, it is allegedly a superior effort to Whedon's blockbuster "The Avengers". 

9. Excel spreadsheet artist.

10. The NSA and CIA have been running tests using Watson to sift through the massive reams of communications data which they have been secretly collecting.

11. Erotic goat sculpture from Pompeii.

12. The new field of behavioral epigenetics; it may be possible to inherit traits acquired by one's parents during their life.

John McTaggart

John McTaggart was a 19th century British Hegelian (or at least strongly influenced by Hegel) who, along with other British idealists such as F. H. Bradley, is unfortunately rather neglected in today's philosophy curriculum. I was recently reading the article on McTaggart in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, when I came across this interesting fact about his name:

"John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart was born on the third of September, 1866, in Norfolk Square in London, to Francis Ellis and Susan McTaggart (Rochelle 1991, 16). He was named at birth 'John McTaggart Ellis', but took on the second iteration of 'McTaggart' after his great-uncle, also named 'John McTaggart', died without descendents and willed his money to Francis Ellis on the condition that his family assumed the surname 'McTaggart'. And so John McTaggart Ellis became John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart. (At Cambridge, he was sometimes referred to as 'McT.)" (Kris Daniel, "John M. E. McTaggart," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)

Links

1. The effect of soil on sub-Saharan African agriculture and development.

2. What happens when you resubmit previously published journal articles to peer-reviewed psychology journals?

3. Are we breeding the nutrition out of food?

4. Teens' use of social media. 

5. Pictures of Finland from World War II.

6. In praise of New Zealand's health care system.

Links

1. A Hungarian student's redesign of the egg carton. 

2. The battle over junk DNA.

3. An 18-year old Romanian has created a design that may drastically reduce the cost of driverless cars. 

Thomas Nagel and Natural Teleology

Michael Chorost has written a reappraisal of the furious debate over Thomas Nagel's claims about natural teleology. Chorost purports to offer scientific evidence in support of Nagel's view (which he criticizes Nagel for failing to offer in his own defense):

But highly regarded scientists have made similar arguments. "Life is almost bound to arise, in a molecular form not very different from its form on Earth," wrote Christian de Duve, a Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, in 1995. Robert Hazen, a mineralogist and biogeologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, struck a similar note in 2007: "With autotrophy, biochemistry is wired into the universe. The self-made cell emerges from geochemistry as inevitably as basalt or granite." Harold J. Morowitz, a biophysicist at George Mason University, argued that evolution has an arrow built into it: "We start with observations, and if the evolving cosmos has an observed direction, rejecting that view is clearly nonempirical. There need not necessarily be a knowable end point, but there may be an arrow."

Chorost seems to conflate the claim that the development of life and complexity is causally determined with the claim that the development of life and complexity is naturally teleological; unfortunately, even if there is evidence for the former, this does not itself constitute evidence for the latter.

Links

1. Photo of Iceland. 

2. Yitang Zhang, an "obsure" mathematician, stuns his peers with a major result about primes. 

3. Japanese barista makes 3D latte art.

4. "Our American Pravda." Claims about the failures of the American media.

5. Thinking big about small talk.

6. The story of one man and his colonoscopy bag. 

7. If you go back far enough, everyone is descended from a king (because everyone has the same ancestors). 

The Metaphysics of David Birnbaum

David Birnbaum, a Hollywood jeweler and self-styled metaphysician, has somehow convinced Bard College to host a conference dedicated to his theories. Birnbaum claims to have seamlessly reconciled religion and science in his (self-published) magnum opus, the Summa Metaphysica. He mailed copies of the Summa to 2,000 philosophers. (I received a copy, but only read a few paragraphs before giving up.) 

Garry Hagberg is a professor of philosophy at Bard College whom Birnbaum falsely claimed served as an editor to the Summa. Here is Hagberg's summary of the Summa: “His work so far as I can see does not (this is description, not criticism) intersect at any point with what the discipline of philosophy considers to be within the field of historical or contemporary metaphysics.” 

A bizarre tale, worth reading.

Progressives' Truck with Trek

Matt Yglesias has written a fine essay on the many incarnations of Star Trek, including a celebratory discussion of its implict (or should that be blatantly explicit?) progressive ideology, with a concluding plea for a new series.

I agree with Yglesias' interpretation of Trek ideology, though I do not join in fist-pumping such a utopian statism. Also, I could do without another series. Yet the importance/impact of the franchise is undeniable. 

Paul Bloom, "The Case Against Empathy"

Paul Bloom's critique of empathy. In fact, it should probably be presented as a critique of the sloppy / careless use of empathy, since the criticisms it offers seem to rely upon empathic concern of others to ground their normativity. Also, the innumerate character of empathy is characteristic of human intuitive cognition and affect generally, so it's misleading to frame the innumerate objection as being against empathy specifically; many instances of self-love are no doubt also innumerate in the same problematic way.

LInks

1. The economics of social status. And: the "Gervais Principle" (an analysis of corporate power dynamics).

2. Tribute to physicist Richard Feynman. 

3. Retrospective of David Graeber, anarchism, and the Occupy Movement. 

4. James Hamilton on the Reinhart and Rogoff kerfuffle. And Greg Mankiw and Ryan Avent.

Two Books on Samuel Johnson

Kate Chisholm reviews two books on Samuel Johnson at the Times Literary Supplement: Freya Johnston and Lynda Mugglestone's edited anthology, Samuel Johnson: The arc of the pendulum, and Julia Allen's Swimming with Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale: Sport, health and exercise in eighteenth century England. The review quotes Johnson on his struggles with the dictionary:

one enquiry only gave occasion to another, that book referred to book, that to search was not always to find, and to find was not always to be informed; and that thus to pursue perfection, was, like the first inhabitants of Arcadia, to chase the sun, which, when they had reached the hill where he seemed to rest, was still beheld at the same distance from them

Allen's work reveals the surprising range of Johnson's physical activities (given his considerable bulk and reputation for melancholy):

Inspired by her knowledge of lexicography and a desire to rescue Johnson from caricature as a “stout, elderly-looking man in a wig”, Allen reproduces a collection of curious gobbets to illustrate the physical (as opposed to mental) activities enjoyed by Johnson and his contemporaries, and the opportunities for exercise afforded them by skating, riding, boxing, swimming, foot-racing and climbing. Of these we know that Johnson attempted all six; not something you might expect of a man noted for his physical awkwardness, depressive tendencies and prodigious hours devoted to his literary output. Yet, if anything, Johnson was a truly twenty-first-century man in his adoption of fast days and vegetarian diets, and his belief in the beneficial effects of exercise on mood and motivation. Allen gives us Johnson the swimmer, diving nude into the sea at Brighton; Johnson the physically daunting nephew of a champion boxer; and Johnson, aged fifty-nine, in defiance of time, space and the balanced life, rolling down a Lincolnshire hillside (is there such a thing in the fenlands?), “turning himself over and over till he came to the bottom”.

Who would have guessed it?: Johnson the boxer, the skinny-dipper; Johnson fasting, foot-racing, and rolling down a hill.