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Monthly Archives: September 2009
Seeing Red
[Reminder: The blog is going onto a light posting schedule to accommodate a busy weekend; the next instalment in the Mansfield Park essay should be posted around Tuesday next week.]
Why is Maria at Crooked Timber writing about a letter about a review of a Chris de Burgh concert I was asking myself. Indeed, why am [...]
More Franken Videos
Via Ezra Klein, another video of the very talented Al Franken.
It is probably childish of me I know, but I can’t help being impressed.
Sapere aude!
Over at TPM, Craig Nelson, has written a paen to the enlightenment, To cry “Sapere aude!” once again, finishing with a lament on how scientifically illiterate our culture is.
There is, however, a dark side to this history, and it has nothing to do with Foucault. The entire Enlightenment revolution in thinking centred around one key [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy, topical Tagged classical philosophy, David Hume, Enlightenment, ethics, irrationalism, Kant, reason, Romanticism, sentimentalism Leave a comment
Blog News
Just to say that posting will probably be light until the start of next week as I have a busy time coming up.
I may get some minor posts up but it is unlikely I will be able to get the third in my series on Mansfield Park up until Tuesday-ish.
Natural Selection, Faith and Reason
John Quiggan Quiggin has posted an article at CT, Sunstein Becked, wondering whether the GOP base are so irrational and beyond reason that Glen Beck’s plans to take out Cass Sunstein mightn’t be so bad an idea, Sunstein being ‘the most influential advocates of the view that the polarization of US politics is the result [...]
Posted in topical Tagged atheism, controversy, evolution, intelligent design, irrationalism, Michael Behe, neo-Darwinism, physicalism 1 Comment
More Moral Science
I have considered some of the work on ethics by the experimental philosopher in Experimental Philosophy: back to Hume? and Moral Philosophy and it shocked me how reductionistic, naturalistic, impoverished and downright confused the thinking seemed to be in places. I got the strong sense that, as conceived, this was not going to deliver [...]
Mansfield Park: Method
This post is part of an essay on Mansfield Park, being posted in instalments.
Mansfield Park
Preface
Introduction
Method
Critiques
The Moral Law Within
Fanny and Edmund
The Crawfords
Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram
Mrs Norris
The Quiet Thing
Enlightenment
Kantian Deontology
King Lear
Romanticism
The Satirical Inheritance
Conclusion
Epilogue: Diminutive Greatness & Fanny Price
2. Method
As for Mansfield Park, the first work of the mature period, it quite matches Emma in point of [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Tagged Emma, Enlightenment, ethics, irrationalism, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, philosophy, reason, Romanticism, sentimentalism Leave a comment
Mansfield Park: Introduction
This post is part of an essay on Mansfield Park, being posted in instalments.
Mansfield Park
Preface
Introduction
Method
Critiques
The Moral Law Within
Fanny and Edmund
The Crawfords
Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram
Mrs Norris
The Quiet Thing
Enlightenment
Kantian Deontology
King Lear
Romanticism
The Satirical Inheritance
Conclusion
Epilogue: Diminutive Greatness & Fanny Price
1. Introduction
The work is rather too light & bright & sparkling;—it wants shade;
Letter to Cassandra Austen, Chawton, 4th February, [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Tagged ethics, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, moralist, Nietzsche, philosophy, Pride and Prejudice, vice, virtue Leave a comment
More Strange Madness
OK, this is the final post (I hope) on this. Robert Wright has posted a diavlog with George Johnson where he gives the complete background to the Behe-McWhorter controversy. For me there was a delightful irony of them moving on to discuss Intelligent Design as a crackpot conspiracy theory, and them trying to [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Tagged blogingheads.tv, controversy, evolution, intelligent design, irrationalism, Michael Behe Leave a comment
Our Strange Madness
In A strange madness Paul Krugman further reflects on the ‘craziness sweeping America’. Paul think the situation is if anything deteriorating, his 2004 criticism of the Bush administration being in some sense worthy of the passionate response they provoked, certainly relative to the current invective he (and Obama) are receiving for their reasoned and [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy, topical Tagged blogingheads.tv, conservatism, controversy, Enlightenment, ethics, evolution, intelligent design, irrationalism, philosophy, progessives Leave a comment
On Intention
As I hoped, I have had some interesting and thoughtful responses to my post on Experimental Philosophy and how it compares with the ethical questions we find in novels in general and Austen’s novels in particular. (See the post on Experimental Philosophy: back to Hume?, Moral Philosophy and Fanny, Edmund and Lover’s Vows).
Jim said:
[I]n your [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy, Austen-L Tagged ethics, experimental philosophy, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, philosophy Leave a comment
Mark Vernon on Love
I and some other readers have been challenging Mark Vernon in his Plato in his series on Plato at the Guardian, I being critical of his Romantic interpretation of Platonic love (see The Heart of Philosophy).
His article this week is Love and the perception of forms, and he was clearly braced for some more rocks, [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy, topical Tagged ethics, love, mystical, philosophy, Plato, poetical, reason, Romanticism Leave a comment
About Page Updated
I have updated my about page to reflect my evolving understanding of the blog. It now starts:
Posted in commentary Tagged blogging, Enlightenment, ethics, Jane Austen, philosophy Leave a comment
The Invention of Autonomy
In my quest to define what I mean by moral philosophy I will, again, contrast it with something that it is not: The Invention of Autonomy, J.B. Schneewind’s great historical account of modern moral philosophy culminating in the moral philosophy of Kant. I will do this by way of commenting on some key passages from [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Tagged Christianity, David Hume, Enlightenment, ethics, irrationalism, Jane Austen, Kant, Mansfield Park, Romanticism, Rousseau, sentimentalism Leave a comment
Caroll and Zimmer leave bloggingheads.tv
Via Paul Nelson, The aftershocks of the McWhorter/Behe discussion rumble on with Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer leaving bloggingheads.tv.
Fanny, Edmund and Lovers’ Vows
I have hammering the philosophy heavily of late. This is all supposed to be by way of preparation, getting a clear picture of the object to be negated—Enlightenment sentimental ethics—for the real action of the blog when we dive into Sense and Sensibility and the other Austen novels, and show how these ethical systems [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Tagged David Hume, Enlightenment, ethics, experimental philosophy, Jane Austen, Kant, Mansfield Park, moralist, philosophy Leave a comment
Seeing More Red