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Before they make me run

Keef always worked well within the limitations of his voice: you can hear that he feels what he sings. This song is from the bleakest period of his life, his major contribution to Some Girls. To to Jagger’s credit he pulled off the strongest of the late Stones albums while Keef was otherwise engaged. The “another…

Philanthropic Institutional Design and the Welfare State

Here is the abstract to David’s and my paper just published in Conversations on Philanthropy, Vol. IX: Law and Philanthropy The topic of philanthropy has a great deal of philosophical interest because it exists at the nexus of issues surrounding distributive, remedial, and commutative justice, perennial issues in political philosophy (Ealy 2010, vi). It is perhaps…

Taleb on Skin in the Game

Nassim Taleb talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his recent paper (with Constantine Sandis) on the morality and effectiveness of “skin in the game.” When decision makers have skin in the game–when they share in the costs and benefits of their decisions that might affect others–they are more likely to make prudent decisions than…

Dennett on Wieseltier vs. Pinker

This from Edge Postmodernism, the school of “thought” that proclaimed “There are no truths, only interpretations” has largely played itself out in absurdity, but it has left behind a generation of academics in the humanities disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for evidence, settling for “conversations” in which…

Coming to terms with Napoleon

Matt Dawson is a top-notch illustrator and is currently working on a book project I’m involved with. I came across Matt via the image below (fans of A Confederacy of Dunces will get the reference) and I knew immediately that here was a man of “taste and decency”. If you want a highly responsive, well-judged…

The real “boss”: Gatemouth

Gatemouth died on this day in 2005. So many tributaries flowing seamlessly into this bona fide genius’s unique style which includes covering Led Zep’s “Rock and Roll” and the Stones’ “Ventilator Blues.” To give an idea of this man’s standing, Clapton was consistently upstaged by him: Clapton very graciously got Gatemouth as support on his 1995 tour…

Kitcher on Nagel

Things Fall Apart (an aside: the man best known for this phrase). CognitionCognitive neuroscienceconsciousnessethicsmetaphysicsNatural selectionPhilip KitcherPhilosophy of mindPhilosophy of scienceReligionthomas nagelvalue