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adam smith

Adam Smith as Scottish Philosopher

Was Adam Smith a Scottish philosopher? The question seems an odd one. He was a philosopher and he was Scottish. What more could we need to know, in order to arrive at the simple answer ‘yes.’ And in any case, why does it matter? On reflection, however, neither the question nor the answer seems so…

bryan magee

The Poor Lady Immured: Notes on Public Philosophy

The very excellent Eugene Heath in Metaphilosophy. Philosophy should not be immured within the confines of the university but should step confidently into the communal spaces of society. Philosophy should include, in other words, public philosophy. What, however, is public philosophy? And is it an unalloyed good? These questions are the subject of this essay.…

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Taleb the Philosopher

Since I’m deeply in Boëthius mode for my forthcoming edited book of essays on A Confederacy of Dunces, this invocation of Boëthius and Taleb grabbed me. Here is Joshua Hochschild’s review of Taleb’s collected works. Boethius the patron saint of bullshit detectors. Taleb displays familiarity with many expected theorists of epistemological humility: Montaigne and Hume, Hayek…

neuroscience

Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are

Published today — this should get some regressive knickers in a twist. In the past century, the tradition of Freudian psychology popularized the idea that our psychological dispositions could be traced to formative childhood experiences. In many areas of modern academic sociology and psychology this belief is still widespread, though it has been extended to…