The last essay in the collection. To write about law in relationship to Michael Oakeshott’s ideas generally, or his thoughts on politics in particular, presents a complicated task, not because law is an obscure concept in Oakeshott and not because it is a topic about which he has written little. In fact, Oakeshott wrote about…
This programme features Toole’s biographer, the very excellent Cory MacLauchlin. Confederacy of DuncesCory MacLauchlinIgnatius J ReillyJohn Kennedy Toolenew orleans
A nice and recent piece on the Rolfe-Symons entanglement, a follow up to the last post. Symons Said; On the trail of a strange, elusive life in literature. Michael Dirda, The Weekly Standard, Vol. 18 No. 14 My quest for Symons A.J.A. Symons, that is began when, many years ago, I first read that strange novel Hadrian…
Check out the Catalan cover to “Dunces” (H/T to Cory MacLauchlin) The outfit was acceptable by any theological and geometrical standards, however abstruse, and suggested a rich inner life (p. 2). a confederacy of duncesCory MacLauchlinJohn Kennedy Toolenew orleans
Even though this special issue has been available for a while, since it is the March issue, it’s an opportune time to give it another plug. I’ll run some extracts from each paper over the coming weeks. complexityExtended MindExternalismhuman stigmergysituated cognitionsocial epistemologystigmergic cognitionStigmergy
Extracts from Gloria’s chapter: Friedrich Hayek’s social theory is well known for his articulation of the paradigm of spontaneous orders that challenges the traditional distinction between what is natural and what is artificial. The problem that Hayek saw is that language and other social objects do not fall under either heading completely. Language is, for…
Given a papal change is underway, Rolf’s Hadrian the Seventh is as timely as ever, and in my view happens to be one of the top five novels of the 20th Century. Here is David Bradshaw’s reliable Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry. Part and parcel of the Corvo legend is Symons’ classic biography of Corvo, Corvo brought to Symons’…
I’m with Ludwig on this. Wittgenstein claims that there are no realms of phenomena whose study is the special business of a philosopher, and about which he or she should devise profound a priori theories and sophisticated supporting arguments. There are no startling discoveries to be made of facts, not open to the methods of…
I’ve been thinking a lot about my instinctive predilection for writers whose life and work bleed into each other, an attraction I felt long before I was fully aware of their biographical details. The first was Kafka; the second Rolfe; the third Musil; the fourth Mishima and the fifth, Toole. I’ve come to the conclusion that these philosophical novelists…
Here are some extracts from Noel’s essay, the penultimate chapter (also check out two new pieces by Noel found here). The distinctive achievement of Western political thought since the seventeenth century is the ideal of the limited state. Despite extensive theorizing about this ideal, however, there has always been profound disagreement about its precise nature…
manwithoutqualities 