Earlier this year I trailed Joaquín Fuster’s latest book that he so kindly sent me as an uncorrected galley. I’m pleased to report that the book is now finally available. Not surprisingly, Hayek features in this work. If anyone suitably qualified would like to review this book for The Journal of Mind and Behavior or Cognitive Systems Research, please let me know. Pat Churchland has given it a resounding thumbs up.
It’s been about 18 months since my last posting on Bernard Williams. Having worked my way through Bryan Magee’s excellent series (Men of Ideas and The Great Philosophers) my original perception that BW was the best performer of both series, remains in tact 25 years on (Searle being the other good performer though I think BW has the clear edge). And I had the distinct sense that BM felt that way as well. Despite BW being in decline, his dazzling, cutting and deep brilliance is still very much evident. Unlike others who have courted the life as public intellectual, BW never did stop doing real philosophy. Check out the talk called The Human Prejudice.
Many people think that “humanity” is an ethical idea, and that it makes a basic moral difference whether a creature they are dealing with is another human being or not. This is implicit in such as ideas as “human rights”, and in one sense of “human values”. Some philosophers attack this outlook as a prejudice, similar to racism or sexism. I shall argue that their view is based on a deep misconception, which itself involves an attempt to project human attitudes on to the universe. The only way forward is to argue out from what we care about, and to consider who might belong with “us”.
The opening chapter “General Bonaparte is Missing” and part of chapter two “News Reaches Europe” is trailed on Shannon Selin’s website. I’d encourage you to sign up to keep apprised of the book’s publication details which is expected to occur early in the new year. This work is a superbly researched, executed and an entertaining exercise in alternative history or historical fiction, if you like. Her website promises to be content rich with short stories, new historical findings (corrections) and so on – made exclusively available on her website.
Subsequent inquiries at the University of Göttingen revealed a glass jar labelled ‘C.H. F__s’ similar to the glass jar in which the brain of C.F. Gauss is kept, both most likely originally labelled by Rudolf Wagner. Meticulous comparison of the two brains in these jars with the original copper engravings and lithographs of Wagner (1860, 1862) have now demonstrated that the brain in the jar labelled ‘C.F. G__ss’ is identical to the brain of C.H. Fuchs as shown in the lithographs of Wagner (1862) (Fig. 1). Moreover, the brain in the jar labelled ‘C.H. Fuchs’ is identical to the brain of C.F. Gauss as documented in the copper engravings of Wagner (1860). These observations prove that the brains have been stored in the wrong jars, and that, consequently, our MRI data recorded in 1998 (Haenicke et al., 1999; Wittmann et al., 1999) do not show the brain of C.F. Gauss, but rather the brain of C.H. Fuchs.
I would agitate against the bemused person who was attempting to help me upward, that is. The agitation would take the form of many protest marches complete with the traditional banners and posters, but these would say, “End the Middle Class,” “The Middle Class Must Go.” I am not above tossing a small Molotov cocktail or two, either. In addition, I would studiously avoid sitting near the middle class in lunch counters and on public transportation, maintaining the intrinsic honesty and grandeur of my being. If a middle-class white were suicidal enough to sit next to me, I imagine that I would beat him soundly about the head and shoulders with one great hand, tossing, quite deftly, one of my Molotov cocktails into a passing bus jammed with middle-class whites with the other hand. Whether my siege were to last month or a year, I am certain that ultimately everyone would let me alone after the total carnage and destruction of property had been evaluated (p. 106).
At the beginning of this year Evan Thompson whose thinking has been very influential upon me gave this lecture. Bumping into Evan the other day reminded me of the forthcoming book he mentioned then, which upon its publication, I’ll have reviewed in The Journal of Mind and Behavior where his superb Mind in Life was reviewed by Dorothée Legrand. Anyway, Evan has posted some details of the new book on his website including the introduction and the toc. I also notice that Evan’s co-authored classic The Embodied Mind is being reissued.
The central idea of this book is that the self is a process, not a thing or an entity. The self isn’t something outside experience, hidden either in the brain or in some immaterial realm. The self is an experiential process and it’s subject to constant change. We enact a self in the process of awareness and this self comes and goes depending on how we are aware.
I highly recommend this just released work by the High Bar Gang: seven highly talented individuals in their own right working in perfect ensemble – all egos left at the door. The three female voices all very strong and the musicianship subtle (special shout-out to the bassist who clearly was the glue). Hearing the HBG live virtually pitch perfect with the actual recording is a very rare phenomenon. The recording really does live up the tagline: a genuinely classic companion to gospel bluegrass. Hopefully, this is the first of several disks mining this rich tradition of songs.
manwithoutqualities 