Descartes (in Three Minutes)

A (Cartesian) quickie:

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Consciousness, Dennett and Phil Collins

“Now I see Mikhail approaching me, he looks angry, that makes me fearful, I want to run away, I’m going to run away, but he might chase me, so maybe I shouldn’t run, perhaps I’ll ask him if we can chit chat over some coffee.” Now, I know very little about Dennett,  but really, this [...]

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Mary, the brilliant color scientist…

I was teaching Hume last week and mentioned Frank Jackson’s well-known thought experiment about Mary, the brilliant color scientist from his paper, “Epiphenomenal Qualia.”  David Lodge, in Thinks…, makes mention of Mary as well: It is a picture of another windowless, cell-like room, but crowded with furniture and equipment — a desk, filing cabinets, bookshelves, [...]

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Now That Is Some Graphic Love!

Anyone willing to put this baby together (below) is a true fan of Handel (unless it’s not photoshopped but is a real representation of the composer, which I doubt) – too bad the website is in Italian:

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British Library Digitizes Manuscripts

Great story, I think, since this is where online resources and digitization should really head – manuscripts to the people: The British Library said Monday that it was making more than a quarter of its 1,000 volume-strong collection of handwritten Greek texts available online free of charge, something curators there hope will be a boon [...]

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How Many “Indicators of Esteem” Do You Have?

Ah, wonderful academic life and its values – apparently at Durham University, in addition to all the other crap they put on the faculty page to indicate awesomeness, some genius came up with “Indicators of Esteem”: Maybe it’s just a medical thing, but it would be a good practice to spread I think. Imagine all [...]

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Handel Will Be Back (Soon)

Yes, I know about the umlaut but Handel was, after all, a British composer by geographical fate. I have listened to more Handel lately than anything else and I think my rediscovered enthusiasm for his operas is shared by others: Since this is promo for Alcina, his my favorite Alcina aria (“Tornami a vagheggiar”) is included [...]

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Job Interviews in the Bedroom (Awkward, at best)

Good discussion at The Philosopher Smoker about conducting interviews in hotel bedrooms/suites and sexism: Over at Leiter, there’s been some interesting discussion about interviewing in bedrooms. Robert Allen says, I should have thought that we philosophers were a little more relaxed in our dealings with each other than to fuss over interview settings (or even [...]

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The Two Great Movement Founders Meet Again!

Wait, they don’t. What is going on? Graham Harman, the great wizard of speculative realism, is in Beirut, but there’s no mention of him meeting his fellow speculative realist Ray Brassier. What gives? Harman would never pass up an opportunity to build up the movement by describing a fateful reunion. Is it possible none of [...]

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New Agamben translation (and annoying ploys to sell books)

I noticed the other week that Stanford UP is publishing a translation of some of Giorgio Agamben’s essays, entitled Nudities, next month. Here’s the blurb: Encompassing a wide range of subjects, the ten masterful essays gathered here may at first appear unrelated to one another. In truth, Giorgio Agamben’s latest book is a mosaic of [...]

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