One of my favorite contemporary philosophers — Susan Haack — here discussing her latest book with New Books in Philosophy host Robert Talisse, both having been contributors to EPISTEME. Warrant, Causation, and the Atomism of Evidence Law Fallibilism, Objectivity, and the New Cynicism Toward a Social Epistemic Comprehensive Liberalism Social Epistemology and the Politics of Omission…
Burton Pike, editor and translator of Robert Musil’s titanic though unfinished novel, The Man Without Qualities, discusses the philosophical and aesthetic ideas circulating in pre-war Viennese society as depicted in the novel. Podcast here. The discussion bears a striking resemblance to Percy’s concerns — no surprise there. Also check out David Auerbach’s commentary on Pike’s…
On the eve of the Walker Percy Weekend here is Chris Turner-Neal assessing one of WP’s later works that will be discussed on one of the WPW panels. Here also is Adam Frank on Lost in the Cosmos. adam frankChris Turner-Neallost in the cosmosReligionscienceWalker PercyWalker Percy Weekend
Percy delivering the 18th Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. Three items: First a filmed record of the lecture Second, an amended transcript of the lecture Third, the very excellent Patrick Samway, SJ overviews Percy’s lifelong concern with science. By the way, the photo below was taken by artist George Rodrigue: check out Wendy’s blog (George’s widow) and her discussion…
Not surprisingly a contested claim. alcoholKari PoikolainenscienceWine
Evan Thompson reviews two of the most controversial books of recent years: What Darwin Got Wrong by Jerry Fodor, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini and Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False by Thomas Nagel. Cognitive neuroscienceCognitive scienceconsciousnessEvan Thompsonevolutionary biologyExplanationJerry FodorPhilosophy of mindsciencethomas nagel
Alan Sokal weighs in again thanks to Nick Brown who was troubled by the conclusion that The mysteries of love, happiness, fulfilment, success, disappointment, heartache, failure, experience, random luck, environment, culture, gender, genes, and all the other myriad ingredients that make up a human life could be reduced to the figure of 2.9013. It’s quite astonishing…
Two of my pieces are appearing in this volume. I’m very pleased to be in such august company and John has done a terrific job of marshaling a veritable tsunami of Dennettalia. But speaking of exorbitant cover prices the listed price here really is steep, despite factoring in the chunky page count. And even if aimed at libraries, they too…
An argument presented by Alvin Plantinga yesterday at UBC. I’ll argue (1) that contemporary evolutionary theory is not incompatible with theistic belief, (2) that the main antitheistic arguments involving evolution together with other premises also fail, and (3) that naturalism, the thought that there is no such thing as the God of theistic religion or…
Gary Gutting weighs in on this discussion that I previously mentioned here. gary guttingHumanitiesPhilosophypost modernismscienceScientism
manwithoutqualities 