Forthcoming: Walker Percy, Philosopher. Philosopher of Precision and Soul by Leslie Marsh The theme of abstraction operates in a twofold way in Percy – abstraction in the sense of being alienated from ones true or more authentic way of being/self and abstraction in a methodological sense, the inherent abstraction of scientific method and the more vulgar…
And his first choice, Bowie’s “My Way” — i.e. Life on Mars. Though he came to self-awareness in the ’60s he preferred the harder-edged and more poetic ’70s. His one item: a lifetime’s supply of Marmite. Sound chap. ConservatismDavid BowieHistoryIsaiah Berlinjohn grayKirsty YoungLiberalismLibertarianismmarmitePolitical philosophyprogressstoicism
Pinker’s forthcoming bestseller which I’m expecting Taleb to eventually rip into. Despite Pinker ostensibly being a classical liberal his implicit progressivist ebullience is suspect. Epistemic humility is not seen as a cultural virtue: it is the zeitgeist of the modern age that we exist in a (misperceived) linear trajectory of progress, progress here taken to be…
The eminently sensible and intellectually honest Susan Haack — an evidence-based philosopher who rightly rejects the epistemic immodesty characteristic of the prevailing rationalistic arrogance of philosophers and scientists. Philosophy for such folk is about what to think and not about how to think: whatever else might be attributed to liberalism, it has primarily embodied the idea that conceptions…
a quasi-eschatological faith in historical progress Well put Damon! Here is one of the more insightful, philosophically literate and least hysterical or pompous analyses. On this topic I have written the following in a forthcoming paper. Epistemic humility is not seen as a cultural virtue: it is the zeitgeist of the modern age that we exist…
Dave Chalmers’ recent RIP lecture. David ChalmersPhilosophyprogressroyal institute of philosophy
manwithoutqualities 