1. Gaps, Knots, and Philosophical Pictures A classical or typical “hard” philosophical problem has a three-part structure. (i) There is an explanatory gap between some set of basic facts and another set of basic facts. E.g., in the classical mind-body problem: “how is consciousness or subjective experience, which is fundamentally mental, possible in a fundamentally … [continue reading]
Philosophical Works, Philosophical Theories, Real Philosophy, and REAL Philosophy.
OP: I hope you all feel ready for a new discussion! My question is: What type of philosophical theories should real philosophy produce? This has been on my mind since the discussion on APP that followed “The Pre-Structured Professional.” In that discussion, the participants agreed that some or even many current philosophical theories don’t do … [continue reading]
How the “Continentals” Internalized Their Oppressors.
1. Scientism and Noumenal Realism in Analytic Philosophy. It cannot be rationally denied that “Analytic philosophy” (henceforth without the shudder quotes) has always been predominantly and even aggressively scientistic, whether by way of formal science (logic and mathematics) or by way of natural science (primarily physics, but also chemistry and biology). The Analytic tradition began … [continue reading]
What (the Hell) is Enlightenment?
Z: Hello Boethius, L_E, Otto, SK, and X1! M is running a little late, but will join us as soon as she can. In any case, I think it’s not only amazingly amazing, but in fact cosmopolitanly cosmopolitan, that seven philosophers on four different continents were able to get together for this conversation. What I’d … [continue reading]
Real Philosophy Re-Discovered 4: Simone Weil’s “Lectures on Philosophy.”
1. Introduction, by Z Simone Weil was a French philosopher, religious mystic, and radical political activist. She died of tuberculosis in 1943 at the age of 34. Her Lectures on Philosophy is a 1978 translation of the transcript of a set of lectures Weil presented in French in 1933-34. In his Introduction to the translation, … [continue reading]
How to Become an Official Enemy of the Professional Academic State.
1. The Timeline of the Sartwell case. Feb. 24 – Sartwell’s post against the APA statement on bullying: http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2016/02/bully-for-you.html Feb. 27 – Sartwell’s post stating his intention to leave academia: http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2016/02/out.html Feb. 28 – Sartwell accuses Linda Zagzebski of plagiarism and posts a link to a music video by Miranda Lambert called “Time to Get … [continue reading]
Real Philosophy Re-Discovered 3. Bertrand Russell’s “Proposed Roads to Freedom,” Chapter VIII: The World As It Could Be Made.
1. Introduction, by Z In part 2 of Proposed Roads to Freedom, Russell discusses many concrete social and political issues, and proposes a number of concrete solutions, in line with his favored doctrine, Guild Socialism–a federalist development of Kropotkin-style social anarchism. And in the last chapter, “The World As It Could Be Made,” he quite … [continue reading]
The Organicist Conception of the World.
The one intelligible theory of the universe is … objective idealism [which acknowledges] the physical law as derived and special, the psychical alone as primordial … [and] matter [as] effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws. (C.S. Peirce, Collected Papers, 6.245, 1891) The attempt to understand nature remains one of the basic objectives of Western … [continue reading]
Real Philosophy Re-Discovered 2. Bertrand Russell’s “Proposed Roads to Freedom,” Introduction.
1. Introduction, by Z Here is the Wikipedia sub-article on Russell during the First World War: First World War During the First World War, Russell was one of the few people to engage in active pacifist activities and in 1916, he was dismissed from Trinity College following his conviction under the Defence of the Realm … [continue reading]
The New Prison of Language: Some Words in English Against the Oppression of Mandatory English in Professional Philosophy.
I would like to begin with a question: why are we being compelled to write and to communicate in English inside the professional academic philosophical world? It seems to be a trivial question that one could easily answer by saying that English is “the most universal language,” and “the global language par excellence.” But this … [continue reading]