Resolve the Grandfather Paradox with your vote!
The folks at the Sci-Fi news site io9 have a cute poll about Poll: What Happens When You Kill Your Own Grandfather As A Baby?
Prof. Ron McClamrock's vaguely academic web home
Transporters and identity
As I’ll be teaching Philosophy in Science Fiction in the Fall, you’ll be getting more of these. Chaospet has a nice little bit on Trek-style transporters and worries about personal identity here.
10 optical illusions in 2 minutes
You know I like illusions. Especially when I’m teaching Phenomenology, I’m the prop philosopher, with all sorts of illusions and other perceptual phenomena to show. So how can I resist this frenetic and funny presentation of 10 optical illusions in 2 minutes?
Is philosophy hot?
OK, I’m not quite convinced the “the number of undergraduate philosophy majors is ballooning“; but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to have the NYTimes act like studying philosophy is the thing to do: In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined.
Liar paradox buttons
Unfortunately, these excellent buttons are currently sold out.
What is philosophy?
Brian Leiter links to a nice little collection of famous philosophers’ quotes on the subject “What is philosophy?” here; he also quotes two of the best, in my view:
Philosophy is thinking in slow motion. It breaks down, describes and assesses moves we ordinarily make at great speed – to do with our natural motivations and beliefs. It then becomes evident that alternatives are possible [John Campbell]I see philosophy not as groundwork for science, but as continuous with science. I see philosophy and science as in the same boat – a boat which we can rebuild only at sea while staying afloat in it. There is no external vantage point, no first philosophy. All scientific findings, all scientific conjectures that are at present plausible, are therefore in my view as welcome for use in philosophy as elsewhere [W.V.O. Quine]
p.s. P.D. has a thought on this, and I have a comment there about that, if you care.
12 philosophers
Chaospet.com is beginning a fun-looking series of 12 comics about philosopers, where the philosophers will be Daniel Dennett, Friedrich Nietzsche, David Lewis, Baruch Spinoza, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Thomas Kuhn, Jean-Paul Sartre, St. Thomas Aquinas, Rene Descartes, Rudolf Carnap, Graham Priest, and Donald Davidson. The first, on Dan Dennett (“Quining Qualia“), is a nice start:
Derrida vs. Wittgenstein
From Saint Gasoline, again.
Being being
I’ve been listening to Bert Dreyfus’ Heidegger course in the car recently, so this toon at chaospet kind of resonated. Especially since Blue Guy gets it right.
