Being Hume Man
Here’s an article by Elizabeth Radcliffe from TPM on Hume: He makes the astounding declaration that “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”
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Robert Nozick
Today marks the death of Robert Nozick one of the most versatile philosophers of the last quarter of the 20th Century. The more I read Nozick, the more astonishing his talent seems to be. He writes with such subtle twists about so many issues from politics to epistemology to identity to consciousness, to ethics to…
Hayek: Cognitive scientist Avant la Lettre
My published article is now available from here. Check out the full table of contents for this volume.
The Social Science of Hayek’s The Sensory Order
Here are the publisher’s details for this soon-to-be released volume that includes my paper “Hayek: cognitive scientist avant la lettre“
Hayek: cognitive scientist avant la lettre
Here is the uncorrected proof of my essay – do not cite.
Ryle & Oakeshott on the “Knowing-How/Knowing-That” Distinction
Some two and a half years ago I previewed this paper. For several reasons, not least because of my faffing about and constantly reworking it in light of new reading, not to mention wrestling with some Quine and Frege, it only now has gone to press. Here are the first and last sections. Section II…
The Elusive Oakeshott
Here is a characteristically lucid piece by Ken Minogue on Oakeshott’s supposed conservatism. It should be noted that conservatism as Oakeshott understood it, is an anathema to “conservatism” understood in the American context. I take the view that these the terms are not at all helpful and are, for the most part, vulgarized. Oakeshott was…
Fable of the Bees
Now it is becoming clear that group decisions are also extremely valuable for the success of social animals, such as ants, bees, birds and dolphins. And those animals may have a thing or two to teach people about collective decision-making. There’s an article in the Economist entitled “Decisions, decisions: What people can learn from how social…
Orders and Borders
This past weekend I had the good fortune to be able to attend the Second Conference on Emergent Order and Society held in Portsmouth, NH. The term “conference” doesn’t really characterise the format – it is more akin to a colloquium where the emphasis is on genuine discussion and conversation in an intimate group (18 in all)…
Alzheimer’s
Here’s a restrained and sensitive article from the Scotsman on Claude Wischik‘s work on Alzheimer’s disease. The tone of the article matches the low-key disposition and existential focus of Wischik. Speaking to an Alzheimic patient on a regular basis, I have often used synonyms for the metaphor of “tangles”: Wischik has spent 24 years studying the neurofibrillary ‘tangles’ that…
manwithoutqualities 