Nice analytical piece by Helen Pluckrose. Consider the incoherent fuckwittery of, for example, “queers for Palestine” and the recent unholy alliance of feminism with Sharia law (I refer of course to Linda Sarsour, co-organizer of the recent Women’s March blindly followed by white middle class pseudo-intellectuals giving new meaning to Kornbluth’s The Marching Morons). The permutations of idiocy…
If you appreciate Kinky Friedman then you’ll certainly enjoy Mark Rubin of Bad Livers fame. The seamless confluence of many styles is an authentic distillation that marks this debut out for serious consideration, shot through with a wonderful self-deprecating sense of humor. The interesting/revealing thing is that given the prevailing (crude and superficial) social ontology, i.e., “basket of deplorables” — Mark would easily…
Is a group a bland puree unless it includes a “critical mass” of the targeted minorities? Peter Minowitz’ newly published and freely available paper in Perspectives on Political Science. . . . as if colorful skin guarantees colorful thinking and white skin precludes it . . . Identity politics and affirmative action may well have met a…
The twelfth in a series of excerpts from Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon. Rouslan Koumakhov Social identifications are one of Herbert Simon’s most recurrent themes. Starting with Administrative Behavior (hereafter, AB) (Simon, 1947/1997), he investigates that theme throughout his scientific work on an impressive number of occasions. Perhaps…
I’ve been following the fascinating work of Tudor Parfitt for the past thirty or so years. He is known primarily for his television programmes broadcast on the BBC and Channel Four. I finally got to reading his book Black Jews in Africa and the Americas. In this age of crude identity politics and “cultural appropriation” fundamentalists, the…
In press: bumper themed issue guest edited by the very excellent Francesco Di Iorio 1. DI IORIO, Francesco: “Introduction: Methodological Individualism, Structural Constraints, and Social Complexity” 2. NADEAU: Robert: “Cultural Evolution, Group Selection, and Methodological Individualism” 3. ANTISERI, Dario: “Social research between the Use and Abuse of Reason” 4. PETITOT, Jean: “Complex Methodological Individualism” 5.…
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Any book endorsed by Christian List must be taken notice of, the introductory chapter available here along with the OUP webpage. Contrary to the extracts below I think we actually have a very good theory as to how individuals (ants) aggregate — it’s called STIGMERGY. In a forthcoming special issue of Cognitive Systems Research we will be presenting…
Recent working paper — Hayek even cited with some Austrians along with Edelman and Maturana and Varela. Cognitioncollective intentionalitycomplexitydistributed knowledgeDynamic systems theoryGerald Edelmanglobal brainHayekmaturanaNiklas LuhmannSimonsocial ontologySocially distributed cognitionthe sensory orderVarela
Recent article from Francesco Di Iorio in anticipation of his forthcoming book. CognitionenactivismFrancesco Di IorioFrancisco VarelaGadamerHayekHermeneuticsmaturanamethodological individualismPhilosophy of mindself-organizing mindsituated cognitionsocial epistemologysocial ontologySpontaneous orderthe sensory orderVerstehen
manwithoutqualities 