Two technological products which have recently caught my attention are going to be unveiled in the near future.
One is Google Wave. This is a pretty sweet web-based program which is hard to describe: kind of like email, twitter, IM, and a discussion board combo, all on steroids. It can really do a lot. http://wave.google.com
The other thing is an absolutely insane interface which is designed to be a ‘controller’ for games and such which is built by Microsoft. It’s actually kind of creepy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8077369.stm
So, I have been very busy of late. I am trying to get my head around some Anselm, Aquinas, Origen and Augustine in my tutorials. But there is a lot going on and I will not be keeping up to frequently with my posts. I have started using Twitter a bit, mostly to take a quick break from work when needed, so hopefully that new sidebar will be of some interest to those who are interested (tautology).
Anyway, perhaps I will get back into writing for the interweb sometime soon. At this point, I am working hard on becoming the best philosopher I can. And when you switch disciplines that can really be a challenge.
I came across this item the other day. Apparently the Roman Catholic Church is now offering indulgences again, mainly,it seems, as a way to get lapsed catholics back into the practice of confession and communion.
The funny thing is that many don’t even know what an indulgence is, even if they are a devoted and practicing catholic.
This is the best collection of bushisms I have ever come accross. Sometimes I wonder how this guy got elected.
Just a few things I thought worthy of mention:
First, let’s get the political item out of the way. Here is an editorial about the Israeli offensive in Gaza which theorizes that the Israeli government timed their offensive so that it occurred while Bush was still in office since the Obama administration would be more likely to give them grief.
Second, a pair of articles regarding atheism and theism and the philosophical debate regarding the existence of God. In the Boston Review one author gives a rather glib and ultimately misinformed perspective on the philosophical debate about God’s existence arriving at the conclusion that traditional theistic arguments are inconclusive and (perhaps even) irrelevant to the debate. William Lane Craig responds on the EPS blog and points out that the article misrepresents both philosophy of religion in general and, more egregiously Plantinga’s work in Warranted Christian Belief. While Craig is correct in his assessment of the article by Byrne, I think he fails to address what seems to be Byrnes’s ultimate underlying question: Why haven’t Christian theists produced a convincing argument for theistic belief?
Lastly, on a more humorous note, a philosopher at University College London has written a piece on the eccentricities and methods used by philosophers when practicing their trade. I never knew that John Stuart Mill regularly removed his trousers when working.
Does the practice of analytic philosophy ‘major on the minors’? By which I mean, in the drive for careful analysis and detailed understanding of complex issues, does the practice tend to shy away from dealing with some of the ‘bigger questions of life’? Are we missing the forrest for the trees?
The academic year has begun here at Oxford and that means that I am really quite busy. Unfortunately, I will not be able to be too diligent in posting so don’t come with high expectations. Luckily, the quality of what is posted will hopefully gradually improve.
I apologize for the long delay in posting. I hope to post a bit more in the near future. For now I would like to simply point any readers still poking around out there to two items I recently uncovered.
First, I came across an article discussing the ways that insurance firm AIG got itself into trouble. Apparently it was through a fairly complex insurance tool called a credit derivative. These little buggers almost brought down the company. The impact of complex financial tools is twofold: it makes it increasingly difficult to understand the highest end of economic discourse, and also, by means of the intensive jargon, it keeps the rich wealthy since only they have access to such financially lucrative and ethicaly questionable products. This is not to mention that the credit derivatives in question were nearly the cause of another global economic downturn. Link
Also, I discovered a few things regarding Paris Fashion Week. The lessons I have learned are twofold, one that high fashion is intensely impractical, and two, that fashion critics apparently speak another form of English than anyone in the world. For example (the caption is my own):
The first model is apparently trying very hard to fly. The second is wearing a victorian style ruff. The third is sporting the newest trend this season, a ream of paper.
I also uncovered this little tidbit, which makes me think that there is a future for the philosophy of language. I will include the image with the caption provided by the website from which it came.
So intertwined with futurism and in contrast to the rigidity of a single gauntlet or plastic triangles poking from eyelids, was a watery softness: stiff square plates collapsed into a drowned world, emerging as a hooded coat.
I apologize if I am offending the critics of high art and high fashion, but that caption is not an intelligable sentence. I believe that this would qualify as ‘bullshit’ under the more technical, philosophical definition offered by Harry Frankfurt (further info). I furthermore believe it would also qualify for less technical definitions, but I will leave that decision to the reader.
I have now made the transition to my new residence in the UK. It was a bit harrowing, but I made it. I apologize for the dearth of material on this site. I have been reading Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy and might post some quotes in a bit. For now, I will just simply point you to three links.
First: Peter Enns is responding to some of his critics via his blog. Link
Second: I found this a very enlightening article about tips for academic publication. Link
Third: Here is a link to the most recent Philosophers’ Carnival. Link
I will try to formulate a response to Dean Robert Gonzales over the next few days. Stay tuned.
I am unable to post for the next week or two as I am in the process of relocating to the UK. Please be sure to read the post by Dean Robert Gonzales in the most recent addition to the dialoge he and I have been having. Here is the link. Link
