Exhausted Noam Chomsky
Once again, this bit of Onion satire was brought to my attention by my chum David Livingtone Smith.
Author: manwithoutqualities
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Jesse Norman, MP
Jesse Norman, a very able philosopher and man of practice, has been elected as the new MP to represent the Hereford and South Herefordshire constituency. Philosophically speaking, Jesse has several strings to his bow. I first came to know him as an Oakeshottian – he edited The Achievement of Michael Oakeshott (Duckworth – unfortunately, no…
Embodiment, Stigmergy, and Swarm Intelligence
Here is a chapter from a book by Michael Dawson, Brian Dupuis, and Michael Wilson (all of the Biological Computation Project, University of Alberta) that has just come my way and is entitled From Bricks to Brains: The Embodied Cognitive Science of LEGO Robots. In fact, all the chapters in draft are freely available to be downloaded…
Phony philosophy
We love stories as much as we need them, but a funny thing has happened to departments of literature. The study of literature as an art form, of its techniques for delighting and instructing, has been replaced by an amalgam of bad epistemology and worse prose that goes by many names but can be summed…
Another Review of “Supersizing”
Here’s another review of Andy Clark’s Supersizing the Mind (Do also check out Rob Rupert’s critical notice here). It helps that Mirko, the blog author, has as his advisors, Andy Clark and Julian Kiverstein. Mirko is also working as co-translator of Supersizing into Italian. Great stuff – this guy is going places.
New Book on Oakeshott
Here’s a new book on Oakeshott by Edmund Neill. Heretofore I haven’t come across Neill’s work but if Noel O’Sullivan says he’s OK, I guess that’s good enough for me. Two quibbles. First, it falls within a series entitled Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers – I thought that by now we’d gotten past these unhelpful Procrustean…
EPISTEME ’10 Reminder
A month to go until EPISTEME ’10.
André Kukla
Here’s an interview with André Kukla plugging his book (see above) from 2006 (which I’ve only just come across). I know Kukla through his technical philosophical work: two titles remain vivid to me. Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science and Studies in Scientific Realism. The former was a well-needed tough-minded antidote to the vulgar relativism…
McGinn on Cognitive Closure
Since I’m very much in “cognitive closure” mode and am immersed in the work of Colin McGinn, I thought I’d post this brief chat. Having read most of McGinn’s philosophy of mind, I couldn’t characterize his work better than Steven Pinker: “McGinn is an ingenious philosopher who thinks like a laser and writes like a dream.”…
Biomechatronics
For an excellent resource on this and related matters see the What Sorts of People website. A step in the right direction Hugh Herr lost his lower legs as a teenager. He has since gone on to become a leading light in the development of artificial limbs Mar 4th 2010 | From The Economist print…
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