Pages
Archives
-
RSS Links
Monthly Archives: September 2009
The Futility of the Culture Wars
[Michael Bérubé has written a provocative essay on US Culture Studies, which he has taken onto Crooked Timber. This is a lightly edited version of a comment I left on the article.]
I can understand the reaction of the Cultural Studies folks, but I really think they should and will be grateful. Your point about [...]
Posted in topical Tagged culture studies, culture wars, Enlightenment, ethics, John Gray, religion, theology Leave a comment
Bad Ethics and Bad Art
I have been trying to avoid the brouhaha over the Terence Kealey’s piece on lust as part of a ‘light-hearted’ and ‘wry’ look at the “the seven deadly sins of academe” for the Times Higher Education Suplement. My automatic response was distaste. But reading Belle Waring’s robust response at Crooked Timber to Steve Fuller’s intervention [...]
Posted in topical Tagged academia, conservatism, controversy, ethics, irony, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, philosophy, satire, sexual politics 1 Comment
The Nadir of Western Civilisation?
I have just been reflecting on the rather neat confluence of events in my previous post, Mansfield Park and The Way we Live Now, that Matt Yglesias posted his article declaring he was glad he had been forced to read Anna Karenina and Moby Dick at school, but, after reading Infinite Jest, considers it difficult [...]
Mansfield Park and The Way we Live Now
Matt Yglesias and other bloggers have been reading and bloging David Foster Wallace’s huge Infinite Jest at A Supposedly Fun Blog. The name they chose for the blog may have been prophetic, at least for Ezra Klein:
But my enjoyment of the book is not outpacing my growing frustration with it. [...] But the things that [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Tagged attention span, boredom, ethics, Jane Austen, literary criticism, Mansfield Park, modernity, novels Leave a comment
Not There Yet
James Balog on Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss (h/t: Chris Bertram). The stop photography is aimedet at demonstrating graphically the effects of climate change happening right now, to try and make it real instead of abstract argument over computer models predicting bad stuff in the future.
Paul Krugman’s column today suggests that principle opposition to [...]
Posted in topical Tagged climate change, ethics, irrationalism, philosophy, post-modernism Leave a comment
Reductionism in Economics
Having collected some of the thinking in the economic civil-war debates in my last post I would like to now throw out a few general observations.
John Quiggin in a recent post at Crooked Timber notes some of the causes of the schism, he thinks partly due to the recent increase in polarization in the political [...]
Posted in topical Tagged Chicago School, controversy, economics, ethics, irrationalism, reductionism, systems theory Leave a comment
Economics Roundup
Krugman on Skidelsky
Krugman has a review of Keynes: The Return of the Master (h/t Krugman). Krugman continues to bait the fresh water economists but provides a neat summary of the Chicago school’s essential innovation, or, depending upon your perspective, regression to neo-classical economics.
In addition Krugman looks at the evolution of the master’s thought between 1936 [...]
Posted in topical Tagged Chicago School, conflict, controversy, economics, irrationalism, Keynes, neo-Hooverite, Paul Krugman, Real Business Cycle Leave a comment
Brooks on the Enlightenment
In yesterday’s New York Times David Brooks proposed made an interesting suggestion.
My second guess is philosophical. Kristol wrote in a time when intellectuals saw themselves as heirs to the Enlightenment, by which they meant the French Enlightenment. They put their faith in a rational elite and a moral avant-garde that would champion justice, virtue and [...]
Posted in topical Tagged conservatism, culture wars, Enlightenment, French Revolution, Jane Austen, liberalism Leave a comment
Mansfield Park and King Lear
My Mansfield Park essay (in progress) has led me to King Lear, and I thought I would sketch some of the connections between the two works.
Much the clearest account I have come across is the brief summation by Jane Stabler in her introduction to the Oxford World Classics edition of Mansfield Park. The basic outline [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Tagged ethics, Jane Austen, King Lear, literary criticism, Mansfield Park, rationalism, reason, Shaespeare, tragedy Leave a comment
Rational Or Christian
I have been using Marilyn Butler’s brilliant Jane Austen and the War of Ideas to write the essay on Mansfield Park and was reminded of this:
In characterizing her heroine, Fanny, Jane Austen illustrates her idealogical disagreement with Maria Edgeworth. Caroline Percy of Patronage, Belinda, Leonora, and other Edgeworth model characters, is essentially a rationalist. Fanny [...]
Posted in topical Tagged Archbishop of Cantebury, education, ethics, faith, Jane Austen, philosophy, rationalism, religion, Rowan Williams Leave a comment
Mansfield Park Update
I am sorry for the drought in posts: I am working on the Mansfield Park essay. It is taking longer than I anticipated, and I find it hard to break away from this in the middle, but it is going well. As it will take another day or so I will force myself to take [...]
Posted in commentary Tagged Alasdair Macintyre, Enlightenment, ethics, irrationalism, Jane Austen, moralist, philosophy Leave a comment
Love Follies Postscript
In Love Follies I criticised a philosopher—a logician as it turns out—for pouring cold water over on a sharp critique of delusionary Romantic love. I want to make it clear that I am not against poetic or even romantic love, being as susceptible to them as the next person, maybe more so. What I find [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy, topical Tagged Dalai Lama, ethics, Jane Austen, love, philosophy, rationalism, reason, Romanticism Leave a comment
Love Follies
At askphilosophy.org punters get to ask question that get answered by a panel of philosophers. It is an excellent idea.
Every now and again, somebody who really knows about philosophy lobs in a seemingly innocuous question to see what happens, like this entry:
Posted in 1 philosophy, topical Tagged Enlightenment, ethics, love, philosophy, Romanticism Leave a comment
Bankers, Economists, All, Repent
Archbishop Rowan Williams’ recent call on Newsnight for bankers and economists to repent has provoked a bit of debate in the UK, while across the pond Paul Krugman’s earlier call in the NYT Magazine for fresh water economists to repent has provoked a sharp response from its targets (h/t John Quiggin, who has a nice [...]
Posted in topical Tagged Christianity, economics, ethics, financial crash, Great Recession, humility, Paul Krugman, philosophy, religion, Rowan Williams Leave a comment
Update and Happiness
Delay in Posting
I am sorry for yesterday’s posting drought and the delay in the next part of the Mansfield Park essay. This is partly due to outside factors but mainly due to the length of time it is taking to write the main section of the essay. That I should over-estimate my preparedness and underestimate [...]
Posted in commentary, topical Tagged classical philosophy, ethics, happiness, Jane Austen, philosophy, rationalism, reason, Romanticism, scientism Leave a comment
O’Leary on how we are Losing Our Minds
Over at the Mindful Hack Denyse O’Leary has also been documenting the inexorable slide of ethics into the pit of biological determinism. There are the run-of-the-mill stories of evolutionary psychologists that don’t seem to realise that humans have important characteristics missing in apes that are essential to understanding ethics.
More alarming are signs that lawyers [...]
Posted in topical Tagged biological determinism, ethics, evolutionary psychology, law ethics, philosophy, physicalism Leave a comment
Curiosity and Free Speech
Stanley Fish has an posted an article on curiosity on his NY Times blog and Ursula Owen has one on Free Speech up at the Guardian Cif. They both seem to fall into a confusion familiar to readers of this blog. First Stanley Fish, who starts by quoting the new Chairman of the National Endowment [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy, topical Tagged controversy, curiosity, Danish cartoons, ethics, free speech, philosophy Leave a comment
More Stillness and Mansfield Park
Following on from my earlier comments on Mansfield Park and Naseem Khan’s A Sense of Stillness article, it is interesting to notice that comment thread is very quiet (three comments before I weighed in—and, despite my three subsequent attempts to provoke discussion, we have reached a grand total of eight comments).
I can see several explantions.
Posted in 1 philosophy, topical Tagged ethics, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, moraliser, moralist, quietism, stillness, stoicism Leave a comment
A Return to Rationality
The more I dig into contemporary intellectual discourse the more I see that Hume was dead right that reason is and must always remain ‘the slave of the passions’. (As I said, Kant was more subtle, but the bottom line is the same.) Everywhere I look the same pattern turns up over and over again: [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy, topical Tagged atheism, climate change, David Hume, ethics, irrationalism, Michael Behe, neo-Darwinism, philosophy Leave a comment
Irrationality in Science
It seems I will never cease to be astonished at the sheer irrationality of so many scientific discussions, often being carried out by such brilliant minds. It is pleasing to see someone making an honest effort to understand and think about science philosophically and test the limits of conventional thinking.
John Horgan and George Johnson
Posted in 1 philosophy Tagged climate change, global warming, intelligent design, irrationalism, Michael Behe, peer review, philosophy, science Leave a comment
The Ethics of Criticism
After posting Seeing Red on Chris de Burgh’s mauling at the hands of Irish Times critic, Peter Crawley, and de Burgh’s letter to the Times in reply, I fairly quickly started reflecting on the ethics of carrying out such reviews, including my own vicarious contribution.
Maria at Crooked Timber admitted to being an unrepentant de Burgh [...]
On Anger
The articles on this blog have taken an angry turn lately, which is to say I have been highlighting the complete uselessness of anger. This conviction is informed by my Buddhist study and practice where anger is almost semantically tied to negative (i.e., counter-productive) action. As always the intention is the key point, anger [...]
Posted in topical Tagged anger, Buddhism, compassion, ethics, love, non-violence, Obama, politics Leave a comment
Stillness and Mansfield Park
While working on the next instalment of my Mansfield Park essay, I came across A Sense of Stillness by Naseem Khan over at The Guardian Cif. It is in answer to the question What would you wish for your grandchildren?
Quietness of spirit is a great gift. It is not easy to acquire but in the [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Tagged ethics, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, philosophy, quietism, stoicism Leave a comment
Marilynne Robinson