Welcome to the 13th almost-monthly Philosopher's Carnival.We postponed it a week to allow many people caught by end of semester delays to be able to contribute. Sure enough, we had quite a few submissions the last few days. In fact we had far more than I expected. So after having up about 25 posts in my original version of the carnival, I've tried to ween it down to the best 15. We're trying something a little different from now on here at the Carnival. After various discussions about allowing people to nominate other people's writings, we've come up with a public nomination system. So if, over the next couple of weeks you find a philosophically oriented post that you think deserves to be in the Philosopher's Carnival, please submit it. Not everyone knows about the Carnival, so this enables more people to see some of the good philosophical writing in the "blogsphere." Also, think about saving up one post for the next Carnival and submitting it as well. Finally, please tell people about the Carnival so that we can continue to attract excellent writing. I remain convinced that blogs offer some very interesting opportunities for philosophical thinking that people really haven't taken advantage yet.
So with out further ado, on to this month's Carnival.
First up is from a blog I wasn't familiar with. On Existence discusses Socrates statement that "the unexamined life is not worth living." They read Socrates in terms of consciousness. To live, to be human, is to actively examine life. They also read Socrates use of "person" to entail a difference between humans and animals in terms of this ability to examine. "Without examining the world, we would be Zombies." However they then start to question (quite appropriately in my view) what the self is and whether Socrates' notion of self affects his every famous statement. They take this down the line of naturalism and neuroscience.
As is my prerogative as this month's host, let me mention two past blog comments on this always relevant topic. The first is from last October by the Maverick Philosopher. (For non-PC users, be aware that the character set doesn't translate - everyone ought run text with extended characters through an extended character to HTML translator before pasting it into your blog) Bill Vallicella took the discussion in terms of its context with Socrates death and ties it to the question of the lie. With some hesitancy I'll also mention that I'd commented on someone's post back in July. My approach was similar to On Existence's in terms of a critique of the notion of a self. (Although I took it down a Heideggarian line rather than a naturalistic one) I tend to think Socrates, especially in the early dialogs, is ever relevant, and too often neglected by philosophers at times.
Over at yet an other blog I'm not familiar with, For those of you at home, takes up the question of what the free will question is. in the context of Gilbert Ryle's arguments against the existence of wills and volitions. Ian raises the interesting approach of asking whether one ought think through the free will problem in terms of wills and volitions, suggesting that it need not. Rather he sees the problem as really about the nature of causes. He ends with the provocative suggestion that the real decision about the free will problem lies with whether the social sciences can find causal laws that describe and predict "voluntary" human actions. That is, the free will problem isn't a philosophical one at all but a scientific one.
Free will seems to be one of the more popular topics among philosophy blogs. (With probably the best group blog focused on the topic). It is always nice to see new people take up the question.
Chris Ragg at Mumblings and Grumblings has an other great post this month. This one takes up Russell's often neglected theory of reference. It's a very interesting post since most of us, shortly after learning about Russell's theories in our philosophy language classes learn about some of the big problems on issues such as naming. So, perhaps unwisely, we cast off Russell and ignore him for the rest of our lives. Chris, in response to a paper by Richard Fumerton, discusses a way to save description theory from the attacks of causal theorists. Chris makes some pointed criticisms which I'll direct you to his site to read.
I must confess that I always enjoy it when important, yet perhaps neglected, philosophers are discussed in new an interesting ways. The problem of reference is also one of my favorite philosophical problems, so I truly enjoyed Chris' bring in Russell into the discussion.
An other new blog for me, The Gadfly's Buzz, has up a rather interesting post regarding the Cartesian cogito and the Buddhist notion of anatta. It's part of one of the best kind of phenomena one finds with blogs: blogs engaging in a discussion with each other. I wish this happened more than it does in our philosophy community. Alan engages the issue with Bill Vallicella and Victor Reppert. (Links to those posts on his page) I'm also very happy that more kinds of religious views are finding expression in philosophy blogs. Buddhism has had a lot of analysis from those in the continental tradition, but it is nice to see a bit from a more analytic tradition. Hopefully we'll see more eastern thought making its way into the Carnival in the future.
Our Carnival President, Richard at Philosophy, et cetera, has up a discussion of whether we ought respect the past desires of a person given present circumstances. It's a rather interesting philosophical question given the events of last month that raised so much interest in ethics. It was nice to see so many people engaging with the idea from a more rigorous approach. It was also terribly sad to see how few in the media did so. Fortunately that is what blogs provide. Richard was responding to a post at the conservative politics philosophy blog Right Reason. So it also is an other create example of blogs engaging with each other. Don't miss the comments, since that's where most of the interesting discussion takes place.
Melbourne Philosopher raises the question of whether universities ought better engage with technology. The context is Australian universities and whether they are afraid of the internet. It's an excellent issue. I should note that at least in the US, universities do appear to be taking up this issue. Quite a few universities have up internet courses. I know my alma mater has numerous online classes. It's very nice for fitting in a few required classes but moving at a pace allowed by other classes. It also lets one make more productive use of ones summer break while away earning money to pay for the fall semester. I've noticed that many other universities have done the same. MIT probably sets the standard for an academy embracing technology. I've also noticed more and more philosophy classes putting up blogs for students to discuss their readings. However the "dark side" of the internet is increased plagiarism and some unease among established journals about making papers available online. One must recognize however that the internet is taking away a lot of what universities once provided. Academic styled discussions are no longer solely the purview of the Academy. As this very Carnival shows.
The next submission comes from the afore mentioned conservative blog Right Reason. Roger Scruton has a very interesting discussion of the issue of schooling from "a British perspective." Roger considers Hegel's tripartite distinction between family, civil society, and the state and the kinds of obligations to which these three spheres give rise. He then brings in a little Nietzsche and the problem of ressentiment in democracies. (Read the post if you aren't familiar with what Nietzsche means by this) Given the conflict between cooperation and resentment, which sphere ought education belong to? Read the comments and see the disputes.
Uberblogger Brian Weatherson at Thoughts Arguments and Rantshas up an argument for contextualism about ethics by comparing it to contextualism in areas like epistemology. After looking at some examples he suggests that the stakes in contextualism are higher than many might think at first. As with many of the interesting posts this month, some of the most intersting bits are in the comments.
One last post from Right Reason. It is an argument for tolerance requiring judgment. Francis Beckwith points out that appeals to tolerance requires that there be something good about tolerance. If tolerance is good because it enables one to learn knowledge and wisdom then one must be able to judge that others have this for tolerance to function as this sort of good. He argues that "appeal to tolerance, once we have a clear understanding of its meaning, requires judgment and assumes certain non-negotiable moral truths." Once again there is a lot in the comments that one can learn from both sides of this issue.
From the opposite side of the political spectrum at Left2Right comes the interesting question of what unnatural means. It's an important question given that many entities or actions are criticized as being unnatural. Especially in political discourse. (i.e. the oft made attack on homosexuality as unnatural) Don Herzog suggests that what is natural only makes sense in terms of a teleology but that modern thought has rejected anything like Aristotle's "natural ends." He argues that modern conservativism, which often appeals to such notions, goes wrong by continuing to appeal to nature for ends. Since this unsurprisingly is a controversial claim, even those who disagree with the post will enjoy the comments. But agree or disagree it is a very interesting issue.
Yet an other blog I'm unfamiliar with, Limited Inc., has a very interesting post about events. He comes to the discussion in a round about way. "Whereas the applicability of mathematics to nature is, actually, the kind of thing that has proven itself, so far in physics, the parallel applicability of language to reality has proven, in our opinion, a dud. Not that there aren’t wonderful things that have been done in philosophical semantics, but on the whole, it has never given us any more reason to believe that this is the royal route to reality than, say, Hegel, or Gurdjieff."
Despite this "put down" of analytic philosophy, he suggests that it has made important contributions in thinking of events as singular exemplifications of properties. After discussing Jaegwon Kim's notion of exemplification he discusses Badiou who (like many in the Continent) see truth as disclosure. Is the analytic tradition able to offer more about events than the continental?
Over at Maverick Philosopher Bill Vallicella asks whether perspectivism, especially of the Nietzschean kind, is coherent. It's a very good post, arguing why taking Nietzsche as a pragmatist is an error. (Meaning the loose sense of pragmatism) He argues that for Nietzsche holding false beliefs in a necessary condition of life. Vallicella argues that for William James, the true is what it is good for us to believe while for Nietzsche the perspectively true is what it is good for us to believe. He also argues that for pragmatists like Peirce truth is converged upon in inquiry whereas for Nietzsche all perspectives do not converge. But Dr. Vallicella doesn't just compare Nietzsche to the pragmatists. He argues that Nietzsche is committed to both perspectival and non-perspectival theories of truth. He finally moves into a discussion of what he calls selectivism. That is, in any inquiry, one must be selective bringing some ideas to the foreground and some to the background.
This is a very good post. It is one of my favorite in the Carnival this month. More so since I had actually missed it, despite reading that blog quite frequently. I need to reread it again and see exactly where I agree and disagree. (I'm not entirely sure I agree with his characterizations of the pragmatists, for instance)
Over at Leiter Reports comes an interest parable about justice and the market power of star academics. What happens to academics who don't get offers? (I might suggest that life outside of academics isn't as bad as some might fear) In the discussion we find the practical implications on an island of two books. John Rawls' A Theory of Justice and Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia. Underneath it all is the priciple "you can’t show a proper concern for justice if you will do nothing that costs you anything."
At The Ethical Werewolf Neil Sinhababu points out that some people consider themselves relativists simply because they aren't aware there are any other choices besides relativism and believing in objective moral facts. Trying to cure the world of this false dichotomy he plunges in and does a nice job of presenting some of the alternatives. A very interesting post, especially for those of us not up on our ethical theory.
Coming full circle we return to Plato. Mumblings of a Platonist asks the question of what understanding is and how it relates to explanations. She understands understanding as the ability to see how parts fit together in a whole. However one must also be able to explain this to others and defend those explanations. All three elements are necessary. She suggests that explanation enters in because understanding the parts includes explanatory relations which make up part of the thing understood as a whole. That is, explanations naturally are entailed by the whole. Going back to the ancient world and Plato, she suggests this is because even causes are really kinds of explanations in the ancient world.
I had said there would only be 15 submissions. My apologies to those I had to exclude. However there was one that came in late from Brandon at one of my favorite blogs, Siris. Also, I hope no one will mind if I slip in one of my own that focuses a little bit on Continental Philosophy. I think it often gets a little under represented in these Carnivals.
Brandon over at Siris has up a very interesting discussion of Pierre Duhem. Even if you aren't familiar with Duhem you might find the discussion of his approach to science and philosophy quite interesting. Duhem recognizes that not all scientists have the same kind of "mentality" in their work. The idea is that there are two kinds of mind, each correcting the other. The one intuitive and the other geometrical. The former grounds us in reality and common sense. The latter sets the ideas from the intuitive into a rigorous order and follows through their consequences. "For science to be true, it is not sufficient that it be rigorous; it must start from good sense, only in order to return to good sense"
Last, but hopefully not least, I submit a post at my own blog Mormon Metaphysics on Derrida and Forgiveness. I start with a discussion of forgiveness at a blog apparently designed for a philosophy class. I use it as an opportunity to try and explain what Derrida is doing in terms of Heidegger's Being and Time. It hopefully is a nice introduction to Derrida for those somewhat familiar with Heidegger. I think Derrida gets an unfair reputation in the philosophical community who often aren't aware of the texts that form the background of his phenomenological analysis.
Great Carnival, Clark!
Outstanding variety as well as high quality. Thanks for your effort on this.
Just a brief note that part of the reason I found Brandon's post so interesting was how it paralleled the two aspects of philosophy one finds in Kant. I'd discussed that a few weeks ago. Kant divided it into the Schulbegriff and the Weltbegriff, or the scholastic and the cosmic. But it parallels what Duhem seems to be discussing. Of course I can't help but bring in a little Heidegger and suggest it is similar to his critique of technology as well. We have the Schulbegriff to the exclusion of the Weltbegriff in modern thought.
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