My dear cultured, well-read, empathetic and sophisticated readers, On occasion I’ve brought your attention to the work of the Sabre Foundation. If like me you believe that access to educational materials is critical to repairing the mutilated civil condition in areas of the world that have, for one reason or another, been traumatized – then please consider making…
Here is my introduction to the Zygon symposium on Oakeshott to appear in the March 2009 issue. This is an uncorrected proof – do not cite.
Stephen Smoliar has a post today that refers to Hayek’s The Sensory Order. I’m particularly pleased to hear that Smoliar’s sometime-colleague Brian Arthur holds Hayek in high regard. Coming from Arthur, that is high praise indeed. Smoliar also writes: Edelman himself does not appear to have acknowledged Hayek’s work, but this is entirely understandable. I’m pleased to…
Dan Sperber’s tribute to Lévi-Strauss on the occasion of his 100th birthday.
Roger Koppl was been banging on about knowledge monopolies for the last year or so. I’ve heard comments to the effect: “What business is it of an economist meddling in the world of forensics?” Roger makes the point crystal clear in a recent posting of his. I quote the punchline: The issue is not getting the…
I came across this nice article by Ted Gioia entitled Exhuming Robert Musil: A Fresh Look at The Man Without Qualities. Here is an excerpt: The Man Without Qualities depicts a strange world in which a couple is given a copy of Nietzsche as a wedding gift, a murderer on death row spends his days…
I’d like to give a plug to a blog that’s just been started by some members of the Colloquium on Market Institutions and Economic Processes at the Department of Economics, New York University – ThinkMarkets. With names like Mario Rizzo, Bill Butos, Gene Callahan and Roger Koppl involved (this is no slight on the other contributors…
I came across this pretty impressive video of Boston Dynamics’ BigDog robot. Click on image below to view.
Colin McGinn poses a fair question: if Obama is half white why is he considered black? Colin is of course making the point that essentialism in these issues is not sustainable and this is reflected in the variety of very good responses to his question, perspectives that bring in fine-grained distinctions that would have never occured to…
manwithoutqualities 