on writing

in the process of writing my thesis i have discovered that 25% or less of the sentences i write are worth keeping.

What Is Philosophical Expertise?

There is an interesting debate going on at the epistemology blog Certain Doubts which asks this question. Check it out. Link.

Working and Link

Trying to finish the first chapter of my thesis on the Epistemology of Disagreement and the Problem of Religious Pluralism.

For the staggeringly few people who might be lurking around, I thought I would flag up a website which has a nicely organized set of links to academic resources around the web, edited by academics. The site is called Intute. Here is a link.

Reflecting on America

The North American editor for the BBC international news is completing his eight year assignment in the USA. He has posted a well written and thought provoking reflection, relaying his general impressions about american culture generally. It’s worth a read.

Link

Psychoactive Drugs

I ran across this very interesting article on the BBC about the use of drugs in treating medical conditions. It seems to relay the opinion of the author regarding the specifics of how psychoactive drugs help those with mental disorders, but it is some food for thought nonetheless.

Link

Crazy Technology Coming Out Soon

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

A Post For the Sake of a Post

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.

Indulgences and Absolution

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.

Link

Bushisms

This is the best collection of bushisms I have ever come accross. Sometimes I wonder how this guy got elected.

Link

A Couple Links

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.