Experimental philosophy of Freedom...

Free Will....

Philosophy : The Science of Free Will

Posted via web from jimnichols's posterous

Badiou on BBC

Badiou on BBC

In a BBC HARDtalk interview broadcast on 24 March 2009, Stephen Sackur talks to French socialist philospher Alain Badiou.

Posted via web from jimnichols's posterous

Zizek on Free Will

History of Stoicism Documentary

Brad Delong nails it....

Grasping Reality with Both Hands: The Appeal to "Undecidability" as Last Gasp

Friedman's argument against social democracy was that it would not do the job--that you would lose a lot of economic efficiency and some political liberty and in return get no equalization of economic power because the government would redistribute income and wealth the wrong way, and the beneficiaries would be the strong political claimants to governmental largess who would not be those with strong claims to more opportunity.

By the time you have resorted to arguing that "human existence in the shadow of a nanny state doesn't conduce to 'Aristotelian happiness'... because it strips human beings of the deeper sorts of agency and responsibility that ought to be involved in a life well lived..." you have lost the argument completely. And I have not even raised the point that Aristotle thought that Aristotelian happiness was possible only if you yourself owned lots of slaves:

Aristotle:

There is in some cases a marked distinction between the two classes, rendering it expedient and right for the one to be slaves and the others to be masters.... The master is not called a master because he has science, but because he is of a certain character.... [T]here may be a science for the master and science for the slave. The science of the slave would be such as the man of Syracuse taught who made money by instructing slaves in their ordinary duties.... But all such branches of knowledge are servile. There is likewise a science of the master... not anything great or wonderful; for the master need only know how to order that which the slave must know how to execute. Hence those who are in a position which places them above toil have stewars who attend to their households while they occupy themselves with philosophy or with politics...

The Modest Marxist

Il “marxista modesto”: Žižek sul Financial Times -

I ask him about the financial crisis, hoping for some political pyrotechnics about the death throes of capitalism. Does thecrisis herald revolution? “No, no, no. I am an extremely modest Marxist,” he replies, rather disappointingly. “I am not a catastrophic person. I am not saying that revolution is round the corner. I am fully aware that any old-style communist solution is out.”

However, he insists, the financial crisis has killed off the liberal utopianism that flourished after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and all the grand talk about the “end of history”. The terrorist attacks of September 2001 and the financial meltdown have exploded the myth that the market economy and liberal democracy have all the answers to all the questions. In the short term, at least, governments will introduce more state regulation and global co-ordination strengthening the capitalist system. In this sense, he suggests that the liberal Barack Obama may one day be counted as among the best conservative presidents in US history.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Preface

J.P. Stern on Nietzsche

Epictetus --See things for what they are

Epictetus --Desire demands its own attainment

Features: 'Philosophy’s great experiment' by David Edmonds | Prospect Magazine March 2009 issue 156

Features: 'Philosophy’s great experiment' by David Edmonds

Situations have a bigger influence on how we behave than we think they do. Perhaps, then, rather than worrying so much about character building in an Aristotelian vein we should be making people more aware of how easily apparently irrelevant factors can shape what we do. As Appiah asks: “Would you rather have people be helpful or not? It turns out that having little nice things happen to them is a much better way of making them helpful than spending a huge amount of energy on improving their characters.”

Is this all a storm in a common room? The repercussions of the experiments cannot be so easily dismissed. Think of the impact on political liberalism. At the heart of liberalism is the idea that an educated adult is and should be capable of choosing how he or she lives. But if, for example, situations affect us more than the reasons we give for our actions, and we use those reasons to rationalise them retrospectively, this assumption may need revision. This branch of x-phi might be nudging us towards Nietzsche’s view that what we take to be the inexorable conclusions of clear rational thought are nothing but reformulations of our innermost desires—disguised as the products of logic. We are not as in control of our thoughts as we thought. Nietzsche fully grasped how profoundly unsettling this notion was.

Wittgenstein on youtube... errr youtube on Wittgenstein actually

I especially like the idea that one should look to how a word is used to find out its meaning... very useful in politics as well as political language games are in many cases--if not all--pure propagandha

Epictetus --Recognize Appearances

I've been off radar...

After a good back and forth on twitter with Jason Pye I bailed on blogging for a bit,while always enjoyable and often fruitful in clarifying my own positons as well as understanding others, it can be draining. Plus Deana's work has been hectic so we've been trying to veg out at home. Got some cleaning done round the house yesterday, as well as some henrydems stuff.

Other than that same old same...

I'm thinking of revamping the blog, and/or dropping it for a while. My blogging as those of you may know tends to ebb and flow. I end blogs, and start new ones...as my life changes so does my blog, and the theme that goes with it.

I also may go anonymous for a bit, gives me more creative options, ala Kierkegaard who would have two different pseudonyms attack each other in public debates in the newspapers.

Been reading Lyotards Postmodern Condition which has me intrigued with modern communication in postindustrial capitalism. I never knew he taught at Emory.

Wittgenstein, Hume, and induction...

A Wittgensteinian Answer to the “Problem” of Induction: Why the Scare Quotes are Merited

Schopenhauer on anonymity

Thus Spoke Schopenhauer

[A]bove all, anonymity, that shield of all literary rascality, would have to disappear. It was introduced under the pretext of protecting the honest critic, who warned the public, against the resentment of the author and his friends. But where there is one case of this sort, there will be a hundred where it merely serves to take all responsibility from the man who cannot stand by what he has said […]. Often enough it is only a cloak for covering the obscurity, incompetence and insignificance of the critic. It is incredible what impudence these fellows will show, and what literary trickery they will venture to commit, as soon as they know they are safe under the shadow of anonymity. Let me recommend a general Anti-criticism, a universal medicine or panacea, to put a stop to all anonymous reviewing, whether it praises the bad or blames the good: Rascal! your name! For a man to wrap himself up and draw his hat over his face, and then fall upon people who are walking about without any disguise—this is not the part of a gentleman, it is the part of a scoundrel and a knave.

--Parerga und Paralipomena, Ch. 23

philosophers make me smile

Time out for a logic lesson!

Review: The Political Mind by George Lakoff

Owen Flanagan knocks around Lakoff's recent book The Political Mind pretty successfully.

I don't think it takes away from the merits of the book, Flanagan is making a broader intellectual history challenge to Lakoff's context.

Also I'm gonna plug Flanagan's The Problem of the Soul which is a wonderful book that I highly recommend.

ex phi in Scientific American

Can a Robot, an Insect or God Be Aware?