languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com
Language, Life and Logic: On reasonableness
http://languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com/2016/08/on-reasonableness.html
Language, Life and Logic. Tuesday, August 30, 2016. Most people don't like being told what they should do or how they should think. Moralizing, in particular, gets under people's skin. In a recent piece. At The Electric Agora, Daniel Kaufman makes the very plausible point that overuse of terms like 'should', far from encouraging people to act in a certain way, often only encourages them to 'hunker down' or become defiant. And if you are giving a good enough impression of reasonableness then you are ̵...
languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com
Language, Life and Logic: September 2016
http://languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com/2016_09_01_archive.html
Language, Life and Logic. Tuesday, September 27, 2016. The trivial isn't necessarily trivial. Recently posted to my Google collection, Language, Logic, Life. At about eleven o'clock the next morning [Leamas] decided to go out for a walk along the front, bought some cigarettes and stared dully at the sea. Links to this post. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom). Language, Logic, Life (my main Google Collection). The Decline of the West (Google Collection). Conservative Tendency (my other blog). Contact me via email.
horselesstelegraph.wordpress.com
An Open Letter to Neil deGrasse Tyson | The Horseless Telegraph
https://horselesstelegraph.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/an-open-letter-to-neil-degrasse-tyson
Lewis Powell's Philosophy Blog. An Open Letter to Neil deGrasse Tyson. Dear Dr. Tyson,. Like many philosophers, I was very disheartened by some of your recent remarks. Philosophers. I would like to think that you and I should be, in some broad sense, partners against a rising tide of anti-intellectualism. What makes something a boon to humankind? Why should you (or anyone) care about one outcome over another? As I said above, I’d love to talk more with you about the value of philosophical inquiry. The br...
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Language, Life and Logic: Brutal reality?
http://languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com/2016/10/brutal-reality.html
Language, Life and Logic. Thursday, October 27, 2016. Recently posted to my Google collection Language, Logic, Life. Dan Kaufman recently got a bit of flak (even from his wife apparently) for his energetic critique. Of the new – or continuing – 'cult of the self'. He is saying that the older movements did not really disguise their egoistic nature whereas more recent iterations – while still basically egoistic – present themselves as being driven by humane motives. I commented (in part) as follows:. 8211;...
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Language, Life and Logic: Richard Dawkins on David Berlinski
http://languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com/2012/06/richard-dawkins-on-david-berlinski.html
Language, Life and Logic. Friday, June 1, 2012. Richard Dawkins on David Berlinski. I may have more to say on the strange case of David Berlinski and his religious beliefs or lack thereof in the future, not just because he is a fascinating character but also because such cases highly intelligent people who seem to espouse a heterodox religious outlook can sometimes challenge those of us who see ourselves as physicalists in a way more mundane believers cannot. By way of background, this piece. Dawkins...
languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com
Language, Life and Logic: Williams syndrome, language and the brain
http://languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com/2012/11/williams-syndrome-language-and-brain.html
Language, Life and Logic. Monday, November 5, 2012. Williams syndrome, language and the brain. In recent posts I have made a number of claims about language and the brain. Allow me to clarify and develop a couple of points. I don't really want to buy into the debate about various versions of modularity or other theories of mental functioning. For one thing, I don't know the science well enough. I don't have a theory, but I don't know that I need one either. On the positive side, they often have an affini...
languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com
Language, Life and Logic: Another case of magical thinking: Albert Einstein
http://languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com/2012/06/another-case-of-magical-thinking-albert.html
Language, Life and Logic. Tuesday, June 19, 2012. Another case of magical thinking: Albert Einstein. That Kurt Gödel's general outlook (especially his conviction that everything happened for a reason) fits Matthew Hutson's notion of magical thinking, I want to suggest that Gödel's friend, Albert Einstein, may in fact have had very similar ideas. The best assessment I know of what Einstein believed is an essay by Gerald Holton. Holton a physicist with an intimate knowledge of Einstein's writings, i...
languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com
Language, Life and Logic: Anti-metaphysical musings
http://languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com/2013/09/anti-metaphysical-musings.html
Language, Life and Logic. Monday, September 23, 2013. I have been looking recently at some material relating to " the metaphysics wars. And thought it worthwhile to jot down a few notes. No doubt, my general position would be characterized by those with other views as scientistic. It is also anti-metaphysical in that I don't see the traditional philosophical discipline of metaphysics as having much point these days. Some of the points he makes in this interview. Are good ones – such as noting the l...
languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com
Language, Life and Logic: Descriptive and normative approaches to ethics
http://languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com/2013/04/descriptive-and-normative-approaches-to.html
Language, Life and Logic. Monday, April 15, 2013. Descriptive and normative approaches to ethics. This piece is a substantially-revised version of an earlier post, 'Ethics in a nutshell'.]. Unfortunately, meta-ethical disputes (which are often driven by deeply-felt convictions about the nature of human life and reality) are not readily resolvable, posing problems not only for meta-ethics but also for normative ethics. And what of science? Science can, I believe, change the way we see the world in a way t...
languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com
Language, Life and Logic: The adjective not the noun
http://languagelifeandlogic.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-adjective-not-noun_17.html
Language, Life and Logic. Monday, June 17, 2013. The adjective not the noun. 8211; and others. 8211; have been reflecting lately on the concept of political conservatism, and these reflections have prompted some inchoate – and totally non-partisan – meta-thoughts on the problems of political ideology which I have set out below. This latter assumption – on which the value of the whole exercise depends – I am beginning to doubt. Nature of human identity. This fact has implications for any social or politic...
