Kant points out that "the power of judgment is a special talent that cannot be taught but only practiced" and that the lack of such a power "cannot be made good by any school" (Critique of Pure Reason A133/B172; Guyer/Wood trans.). He then gives us this footnote:
The lack of the power of judgment is that which is properly called stupidity, and ( Read more... )

I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again “I know that that’s a tree”, pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: “This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy.” (Wittgenstein, On Certainty, §467)

You must visit Hearts of Glass, my friend's etsy site with her & her partner's gorgeous, gorgeous glass jewelry & beads. Their stuff is just divine. I have one piece of theirs, a red version of this sparkle leaf pendant, that is my favourite. I have been complimented on it everywhere (most recently, a security inspector at an airport. Seriously. ( Read more... )

From Naomi Scheman, "Feminism in Philosophy of Mind," in The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy, ed. Miranda Fricker & Jennifer Hornsby (Cambridge UP 2000), pp. 52-53:

Disputes among feminist theorists frequently take the following form: theorists of type A argue against the appeal to absolute standards of truth or rightness that exist ( Read more... )

My friends are brilliant, artistic, and fantastic, and continually amaze me. For exhibit A, I invite you to check out my friend Keith's Wooden Rings and Things. His stuff is really gorgeous, and he's very conscientious about making sure you're happy with what you get. He's being featured for the next month at the Ottawa School of Art's Hand-Made ( Read more... )

"Kantianism is only superficially repulsive -- despite appearances, it offers an inducement, solace to a sense of the world's unfairness."

- Bernard Williams - “Moral Luck” from Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973-1980 (Cambridge UP, 1981), p.21.

A non f-locked post, just for fun.

This summer I'm teaching an introductory freshman course on philosophy; it's a required core course, so I have a lot of non-majors. I've taught this course a number of times before, and I've decided to totally revamp the syllabus. Instead of focusing on the nature of the soul & freedom, I'm going to focus on love ( Read more... )

Town Hall Readings: Writing Home with Don DeLillo, Kiran Desai, Neil Gaiman, Nadine Gordimer, Alain Mabanckou, Steve Martin, Salman Rushdie, Pia Tafdrup, Tatyana Tolstaya, Saadi Youssef.

Just bought my ticket. I am happy.

The academics_anon discussion of the Middlebury decision re. Wikipedia reminded me of the time I looked up "autonomy" on Wikipedia, just out of curiosity (since it's my research area).

Yikes. Oh dear.

Actually to be more careful, here is the link to the latest edit, in the history page, in case someone updates it. Excerpts below.

( Choice quotations: )

A Jesuit friend of mine sent me this.

( Hilarious, and theory-tastic. )