August 13, 2010

I recently had the honor and good fortune to be on the same panel as neuroscientist Joaquin Fuster. We had been in correspondence over the years: the intellectual generosity of this man, one of the giants in the field, knows no bounds. I was thrilled to finally meet him in person. Below are some shots of him in full flight – his talk was entitled “Frederick Hayek’s Theory of Mind and Human Cognition.” (As co-panelist I was pitching Hayek as an extended mind theorist of sorts). Here is a lecture of Joaquin’s entitled “Distributed Memory and the Perception-Action Cycle” that is not far removed from his talk in San Diego. Here are some highlights from a recent lecture entitled “The brain is a search engine.”









In conversation with Roland Zahn, another fascinating mind.

Dinner with yours truly.
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cognitive science, connectionism, consciousness, cybernetics, hayek, joaquin fuster, memory, networks, neurobiology, neuron, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, the sensory order |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
April 21, 2010

Here’s a nice rendering by Mary Campbell of a photo of Oakeshott given to me by his son Simon (the photo was taken at Caius circa 1933). Speaking of Oakeshott, the following must rate as the most bizarre invocation of Oakeshott I’ve come across (Jewish Political Studies Review 19:1-2, Spring 2007).
Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) was a leading British social and political theorist, often credited as a father of libertarian thought.
Even on the most generous of interpretations “father of libertarian thought” is so off-beam. We know Oakeshott took issue with libertarianism in no uncertain terms. Who conceives of Oakeshott in these terms? I’d like to know. And again:
As to openings, Oakeshott, unlike many other philosophical defenders of the free society, has a generous appreciation for the category of tradition. Although his political thought is often associated-no doubt simplistically-with libertarianism, he afforded traditional ways of life considerable scope in the conduct of a humane society.
A traditionalist (assuming Oakeshott to be one) cannot accept the spontaneous unforseen consequences of an absolutely free-market. It would be corrosive of tradition!! This is not to say that the free-market doesn’t have an important role to play for Oakeshott – or that tradition itself is not a spontaneous phenomenon – but to so brazenly claim that Oakeshott is associated with libertarianism is absurd. I know of no theorist who makes that claim.
Although somewhat overshadowed in life by his more famous contemporaries Isaiah Berlin, Friedrich Hayek, and Karl Popper, Oakeshott, not least on account of his profound and astonishingly elegant prose, bids fair to displace them in death.
That’s quite an optimistic claim – at best Oakeshott might take his place next to these titans – but displace them? This is hagiography.
Last,
Oakeshott’s thought, however, has hardly been taken up by Jewish philosophers. Although political theorists who are Jews, such as Josiah Lee Auspitz or Efraim Podoksik of the Hebrew University, have worked on Oakeshott, there have been no diligent attempts to mine Oakeshott for the purposes of Jewish thought. Nor have Jewish thinkers engaged him in philosophical conversation. This is regrettable, for Oakeshott offers a number of promising openings and provocations for contemporary Jewish thought.
Though a significant chunk of those who have written on Oakeshott are Jewish, this fact has no salience at all. Can only “Jewish” scholars plausibly claim expertise in Jewish philosophy? Ridiculous.
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Alan Mittleman, Berlin, Jewish Philosophy, Popper, hayek, libertarianism, liberty, mary campbell, oakeshott |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
April 10, 2010
Check out two recent MSS by Alvin Goldman that addresses this question.
1. Why Social Epistemology Is Real Epistemology (to appear in D. Pritchard, A. Haddock, and A. Millar, eds., Social Epistemology, Oxford University Press). Goldman, the doyen of analytical social epistemology takes on the late Bill Alston.
2. Systems-Oriented Social Epistemology (to appear in T. Gendler and J. Hawthorne, eds., Oxford Studies in Epistemology). “Systems oriented SE is a flexible form of epistemological consequentialism that evaluates social epistemic systems in terms of their impact on epistemic outcomes.” Good grief – Hayek even gets a mention.
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alvin goldman, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, epistemology, hayek, social epistemology, systems, william alston |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
April 6, 2010
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Road to Serfdom, Troy Camplin, cognitive closure, cognitive science, complexity, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, hayek, network theory, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, nomoi, spontaneous order, the sensory order |
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March 2, 2010
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
March 1, 2010
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February 8, 2010
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Bill Butos, Colin McGinn, Economics, Edelman, Embedded, Fuster, Gilbert Ryle, Inevitability Thesis, The Road to Serfdom, advances in austrian econmics, austrian economics, brain science, bruce caldwell, cognition, cognitive closure, cognitive ecology, cognitive science, cognitive systems, collective intentionality, complexity, computational intelligence, connectionism, consciousness, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, embodiment, enactivism, evolutionary psychology, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism, gerald edelman, hayek, knowing how knowing that, leslie marsh, liberalism, mind body, neurobiology, neuroeconomics, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, phenomenology, philosophy of economics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science, psychology, qualia, rationality, reason, situated cognition, social cognition, social connectionism, social constructivism, social epistemology, socialism, sociology, spontaneous order, stigmergy, the "hard" problem, the sensory order |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
January 22, 2010
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Andy Clark, Descartes, Economics, Edelman, Embedded, Evan Thompson, austrian economics, brain science, cognition, cognitive closure, cognitive ecology, cognitive science, complexity, computational intelligence, connectionism, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, embodiment, emergence, enactivism, evolutionary psychology, extended mind, externalism, hayek, mind body, neurobiology, neuroeconomics, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of economics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science, psychology, qualia, representationalism, situated cognition, social cognition, social connectionism, spontaneous order, the "hard" problem, the sensory order, varela |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
January 9, 2010
Here is the uncorrected proof of my essay – do not cite.
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
December 10, 2009
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John Searle, advances in austrian econmics, behaviorism, brain, brain science, cognitive closure, cognitive modeling, cognitive science, complexity, computational intelligence, concept of mind, connectionism, consciousness, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, dualism, enactivism, evolutionary psychology, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, frame problem, frank rosenblatt, gerald edelman, hayek, joaquin fuster, knowing how knowing that, psychology, qualia, roger penrose, steve horwitz, stigmergic, stigmergy, the "hard" problem, the sensory order |
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