In: Walker Percy, Philosopher Richard Gunderman A woman lies in a coma, having been admitted to the intensive care unit following a beating by her lead pipe-wielding boyfriend. She is alive, but her neurologic prognosis is uncertain. The chaplain assigned to the case hovers outside her door, afraid to enter. A man of peace, he anticipates…
Julian Baggini on Hume. Hume was always suspicious of what he called ‘enthusiasts’ and it is perhaps telling that the meaning of this word now has an unambiguously positive meaning . . . To be an enthusiast in Hume’s sense is to forget one is human and act as though one were a god, sufficient in…
My copy of Tim’s festschrift finally arrived today. It’s a well-deserved and beautifully produced and edited collection. Over the years Tim has been immensely supportive of my endeavors, most notably the Oakeshott Association. For more on Tim see here. HobbesLiberal educationMichael OakeshottPolitical philosophyTimothy Fuller
Born on this date. Any self-respecting funkster, acid or otherwise, should have this album in their collection — but this album is far more than just that. My copy is a Japanese import and though pricey, it was dosh very well spent. Here is a good assessment of Baby Huey by Leo DeLuca. acid funkacid…
A timely paper by an occasional collaborator of mine, the very excellent Ted Lewis. Attempts to control the flow of information through a social network by censorship or blocking are unlikely to succeed for a number of reasons: determining what is true and what is fake may be difficult; identification and response to outbreaks of…
Forthcoming: Walker Percy, Philosopher. Percy on the Allure of Violence and Destruction Brian A. Smith Anxiety concerning the decline and fall of civilization appears throughout Walker Percy’s body of work. Smith argues that what sets Percy’s account of this issue apart from others rests in his preoccupation not so much with depicting actual disaster for what…
Gianna Englert reviews the the first complete English translation of Benjamin Constant’s On Religion: Considered in Its Source, Its Forms, and Its Developments. benjamin constantfreedomGianna EnglertLiberalismPolitical philosophyReligion
EPISTEMEEpistemologyevidencesocial epistemology
Forthcoming: Walker Percy, Philosopher. “There Must Be a Place”: Walker Percy and the Philosophy of Place Patrick L. Connelly Patrick Connelly explores Walker Percy’s contribution to the philosophy of place by examining place-thinking in his fiction and nonfiction. Percy is first put in conversation with the contemporary philosopher of place Edward S. Casey. Both writers understand place as a source…
I’ve been exploring a terrific repository of “Rolfeana” curated by blogger/translator James Conway on his very interesting Strange Flowers blog, its tagline — “A cabinet of human curiosities”. If like me you have a soft spot for radical individualists (i.e. transgressive “characters”), then James’ blog is just the ticket: [i]s a product of the blogger’s obsession with history’s…
manwithoutqualities 