Ron McClamrock’s vaguely academic web home
Ah, P.D. has blogged about our chat already (Existential notes from the campaign), so why write it myself?
…Ron mentions to me that he’s been noticing the phrase “existential threat” coming up in the campaign; as in the sentence, “A nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel.” The OED informs me that the sense of [...]
The excellent “Philosophy Bites” podcast series has a nice 13-minute talk with the also-excellent Barry Smith about how results from neuroscience are replacing thought experiments in discussions in the philosophy of mind.
Download it or listen below:
Nice illustration of a good illusion:
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?
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.
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?
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.
Unfortunately, these excellent buttons are currently sold out.
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 [...]
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: