Categories
Sideblog
How free is God's will? I think there is an essential tension between early Jewish views in which God is a limited but purposeful quasi-anthropic actor and the Hellenistic views where God is the ontological ground of existence. You'll always run into problems reconciling the two.
#
Working notes on Derrida's On Touching. I've not read this work and it sounds like I really should. Of course timewise...
#
Empirically studying Heidegger's notion of ready-at-hand. They study the example I always give when explaining Heidegger: a mouse that doesn't track correctly. (HT: Enowning)
#
Philosophy is Inquiry "We do not study Kant and Nietzsche and Heidegger to refute them or to agree with them, or to satisfy a need to have something to believe in, or a need to belong to a movement, or a craving for action-guiding beliefs. Philosophy is inquiry: an attempt at arriving at the sober impersonal truth to the extent that this is possible for such limited beings as we are." He sounds like a Peircean to me. (A bit of truth and a bit of a joke if you read his post)
#
Brandon on Newton's argument against the Trinity. While I always knew of Newton's views I've never really paid attention to his reasoning before. This particular argument is rather relevant for Mormons. (IMO)
#
Why trust Kant on ethics? I also like his bit about "gobbledy-gook." I know I'm in the distinct minority but I feel about Kant the way a lot of people feel about Derrida. (Although Brandon makes a good defense in the comments) That said I still think Kant raises some important questions and critiques of Hume.
#
Jeff has up a new blog up, Stop that Crow. He's starting off discussing determinism in its various guises. We'll see if he addresses other topics. Jeff's been a frequent commenter here.
#
FPR on Beck & Social Justice. His Rawlian reading of Mormonism is worth checking out as well.
#
Matt B. on Glenn Beck's comments on social justice and the responses. "...advocates for something called the 'religious left' seem to be trapped in much the same paradigm that Beck is – that is, they tend to use religious language within an already existing economic and political paradigm." I do think the way the issue has been discussed is unfortunate.
#
Levinas, Ostler and the Face of the Other Seeing Christ's Atonement in Mormon theology through Levinas' conception of suffering.
#
More Entries

Evolution and Theology

Yes, I’m really behind on blog posts here. Sorry, I’ve been quite busy. Larval Subjects had an interesting post on theology and evolution. It’s primarily brief comments on Nagel, Fodor and Plantinga responding to Darwinism. However Levi raises a good critique I’ve heard both from more fundamentalist critics of evolution as [...]

Vaccine Doctor Dismissal

The doctor who perpetrated fraud regarding a vaccine link with Autism will finally be banned from medicine. Yes it’s not done yet, but it looks like it’ll happen soon. It’s hard to underestimate the damage to children this guy has done. Not to mention the irrational panic he’s caused in parents. [...]

Chemistry Set Generation

I, like many, was enraged by this ridiculous story about a school that evacuated due to a “bomb threat”. The threat? An 11 year old with a science project in a Gatorade bottle – a motion detector. All this reminds me of the good old days of the chemistry set generation. [...]

Should Downs Syndrome Be Cured?

The New York Times has up an editorial, “Should Downs Syndrome be cured?” Of course. This idea that debilitating problems in babies should be left because others have it is ridiculous. Guess what, if you spend your childhood battling cancer it’ll change your personality as well.
I think a lot of [...]

Faith Instinct

Over at Gene Expression Razib reviews Nicholas Wade’s The Faith Instinct. It sounds like a different sort of book from the more cognitive science oriented ones like Scott Atran’s In Gods We Trust. (Which I enjoyed a great deal). One problem I’ve always had over the question of the evolution of religion [...]

The Laboratory Safety Song

OK I saw this at Science Blogs and had to share. The muppets do lab safety.

Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science

It’s Only a Theory has up a great post on metaphysics and the philosophy of science. It’s basically critique of Sider’s view of metaphysics. I confess I’m more on Sider’s side here. (Sider and Williamson are my two favorite analytic philosophers at the moment – even when I don’t agree with them) [...]

Who Does Metaphysics

Interesting quote from NDPR’s review of Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology
That the questions asked by metaphysicians should simply be left to physicists is not a criticism that those not generally skeptical of philosophical inquiry should take seriously. As philosophers, we tend to value the methodology of our own discipline and (whether justified [...]

Polling Beliefs and Action

Interesting post up by Megan McArdle on polls on global warming. As many have noted this week there was a 14 point drop in the number of people accepting global warming. While some of that might be explainable by persuasion by warming skeptics, I think McArdle is correct that something else is [...]

Creationism as a GOP Litmus Test?

There’s some interesting discussion about whether Creationism has become a kind of litmus test for GOP candidates. Razib, writing over at Secular Right, notes
[I]t looks like 3 of the front-runners for the G.O.P. nomination are rather frank Creationists (Palin, Huckabee and Pawlenty). I’m skeptical about any of these as likely candidates (i.e., if [...]

Musings on Matter

Vallicella’s post on matter and Working Note’s post on Derrida and matter have had me thinking today. (When not working) Of course both materialism and naturalism have long been problematic terms — often more clearly defined in terms of what the author using them opposes. Merely tying the term “matter” to physics [...]

Math Comics

Review at the NYT of Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth. It is sometimes interesting to realize how many of the great mathematicians were complete lunatics by the end. The real history sometimes reminds me of H.P. Lovecraft stories (like say “The Dreams in the Witch-House”) sometimes.
From the review:

Multitasking: Missing the Point?

Chris sent me an interesting story last week regarding the multitasking debate. It asks whether multitasking studies are missing the point. You probably recall the discussions on studies that those who multitask do more poorly than those who single task. Which, I think we all already knew from our personal experience. [...]

German Mind

Brandon at Sirus posted a funny quote by Duhem on Kant:
Highly skilled at deduction, the German mind is poorly endowed with common sense. It has a limitless confidence in the discursive method, whereas its confused intuition gives it only a weak assurance of the truth.
Read the full quote and discussion at Sirus. He [...]

Missing Dads and Bad Behavior: Environment or Genes?

An other fascinating post from Razib. This one on the question about whether bad behavior from homes without dads is primarily due to environment (as both liberals and conservatives tend to suggest) or genes. I’d never have even thought to raise the question. It’s quite fascinating even though it doesn’t fully resolve [...]

keep looking »

Quote of the Moment

Search

Try Amano Chocolate
First American Gold Medal Winner
at the
London Academy of Chocolate

Admin

Log in
XHTML

Categories

Sideblog