Maverick Philosopher

Powerblogs Finally Pulls the Plug; TypePad Rules!

It happened around 5 PM local time, yesterday, January 3rd.  It was supposed to happen on the last day of November.  One final bit of incompetence from the Powerblogs team: it took them over a month to shut down their server.   But I used the time to capture more old posts the easy way.  Yes, of course, I have backed up the entire site, comments and all.  (Keith Burgess-Jackson kindly gave me unsolicited advice on how to do this.) I have also backed up the hundreds of partially completed draft posts.  Trouble is, it is a royal pain in the culo to transfer the backed-up material to the archive site.  I have done a little, as you can see here.  But it is an awful chore working with a monstrously large blob of unstructured text, cutting it at the joints.  It's work not fit for man nor beast. My life of creative leisure under the guiding star of otium liberale has spoiled me for mechanical and secretarial tasks.  Being a vox clamantis in deserto doesn't help either.

BlogWatch: Anecdotal Evidence

From the masthead: A blog about the intersection of books and life.  By Patrick Kurp, Bellevue, Washington.  Excerpt from a recent post:

I’m reading more than at almost any time in my life but spending less time reading online. The two facts have a common source – a festering impatience with shoddy writing. My literary gut, when young, was goat-like -- tough and indiscriminate. I read everything remotely of interest and felt compelled to finish every book I started. This makes sense: Everything was new, and how could I knowledgeably sift wheat from chaff without first milling, baking and ingesting? Literary prejudice, in a healthy reader, intensifies with age. I know and trust my tastes, and no longer need to read William Burroughs to figure out he wrote sadistic trash.

I've read my fair share of Burroughs and I concur that his stuff is trash: Junkie, Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, Exterminator.  All in my library.  But there is a place for literary trash.  It has its uses as do the pathologist's  slides and samples.  But put on your mental gloves before handling the stuff. 

You're So Vain, You Prob'ly Think This Post is About You

But it isn't! Permit me to explain.

I've been at the blogging game for going on six years now, and on at least a dozen occasions I have had people say or suggest that a certain post was directed at him or her. Well, we are all vain, and we all take the measure of events in their relation to our dear old selves. So you read one of my posts and you think, "Is he trying to get back at me?" But I'm an idea man, not a people person, and so my posts are about ideas always and primarily and about people only sometimes and secondarily. And if they are about specific people I say so.

Just so everything is perfectly clear, my title is a takeoff on the refrain of a quasi-eponymous Carly Simon number from the early '70s. I am not saying de re of any particular person, Tom, Dick, or Mary, or anyone, that he or she is vain. I am saying de dicto that all of the seed of Adam are vain sons-of-bitches.

If You Send E-Mail to a Blogger . . .

. . . bear in mind that it is liable to be posted for all the world to see.  Most bloggers are permanently on the prowl for interesting 'blog fodder.'  This blogger is no different.  What I find interesting, what I find suits my philosophical or pedagogical or polemical purposes, is liable to be posted in whole or in part.  Of course, I am typically discreet and reasonable by my lights.  But what counts as discretion and reasonableness by my lights may not count as such by yours.  So if you send me something and want to be sure it doesn't enter the 'sphere, append some such annotation as:  Not for public consumption.  I will respect your wishes if you are a decent and honorable person. 

I used to supply the names and sometimes the e-mail addresses of correspondents who submitted material, but in many cases I no longer do this, both to protect the young and not-yet-established who are trying to make their way in a world increasingly polarized and dirempted by political antagonisms, a world in which almost anyone can find out almost anything about almost anyone with a few keystrokes, but also to save myself work later on when said individuals, out of a fear that is often excessive, ask me to remove their names and other identifying information.

Own your words.  Accept responsibility for what you say and do.  Don't hide behind handles.  These are sound conservative maxims.  I will enforce them on some, but I cannot in good conscience enforce them on all in the present social and political climate.  The years to come will be interesting indeed, as things 'heat up' ever more.  And I am not talking about global warming.

Mangan's Blog Has Been Removed

If you try to access Dennis Mangan's weblog you receive the message: Sorry, the blog at mangans.blogspot.com has been removed.  (HT: Malcolm Pollack)  If you were to ask me to speculate I would say that the forces of political correctness have something to do with this.  I quit using the Blogger/Blogspot platform almost six year ago, and I don't understand why people stick with it, apart from the fact that it is free.  Note the link to "report abuse" and "objectionable content" at the top of the Blogger homepage.  You can bet that idiots in great numbers will abuse this link, idiots who do not appreciate the good old classically liberal values of toleration, open inquiry, and free speech.

For more discussion of the Mangan case, see Malcolm Pollack's post Thoughtcrime, and a post by Laurence Auster. 

UPDATE (5:15 PM):  Mangan informs me that he is back in the saddle, here, at Typepad.

UPDATE (4 December):  I see that Mangan's old blog has been restored by the powers that be.  Interestingly, if you Google 'Mangan's' you are shown a link to his Racial Consciousness.  It  is but speculation on my part, but I should think that it is posts like this that certain people find objectionable, and that got him blacked out,  if only temporarily.

Go read the post and ask yourself if there is anything in it that a reasonable person could find 'hateful' or 'racist' or sufficiently objectionable to warrant censure.  If you answer in the affirmative, then you brand yourself as hopelessly obtuse, both morally and intellectually.

Malcolm Pollack at the Gates of Vienna

Or rather, at the gates of Gotham.  Malcolm writes,

Upon reading your post The Left's Death Wish, I thought you might find this interesting: A Genealogy of Radical Islam.

I've been contending with the liberal mindset regarding Islam over at my own place, where, for suggesting that the massacre at Ft. Hood was most likely an example of jihad, and of why an increasing Muslim presence in the West might not be such a good idea, I was tarred, as usual, as a vile Islamophobe.

It's often tempting, as my own shadow lengthens to the East, to withdraw to a quiet life of reading and contemplation. But scribble I must, it seems.

1. Well, Malcolm, I hope you don't succumb to the temptation to withdraw from the fray.  To paraphrase Plato, the price the good pay for their indifference to politics is to be ruled by the evil.  Not that I don't understand the temptation to withdraw.  To quote from an earlier post: 

Why not stick to one's stoa and cultivate one's specialist garden in peace and quiet, neither involving oneself in, nor forming opinions about, the wider world of politics and strife? Why risk one's ataraxia in the noxious arena of contention? Why not remain within the serene precincts of theoria? For those of us of a certain age the chances are good that death will arrive before the barbarians do.

[. . .]

 The answer is that the gardens of tranquillity and the spaces of reason are worth defending, with blood and iron if need be, against the barbarians and their leftist enablers. Others have fought and bled so that we can live this life of solitude and beatitude. And so though we are not warriors of the body, we can and should do our tiny bit as warriors of the mind to preserve for future generations this culture which allows us to pursue otium liberale in peace, quiet, and safety.

2.  I don't know whether to commend you or criticize you for the restraint and tolerance you have shown in the comment thread to your 11/5 post.  One of the cyberpunks  calls you a "xenophobe" while the other removes the 'crypto' from your ironic self-characterization as a "crypto-Nazi."  Me, I DELETE and BLOCK the minute that sort of behavior is manifested.  Why waste your time with abusive cyberpunks who hide anonymously behind their 'handles' while spewing their PeeCee nonsense? 

The answer, I suppose, is that by responding you demonstrate to others, if not to the punks, how to rebut the charges.  So perhaps I should commend you for your toleration.  I suspect you will agree with me, however, that toleration has its limits.

3.  We agree on the substantive point that, as you put it " the massacre at Ft. Hood was most likely an example of jihad. . . ."  There is plenty of evidence for this, and it is most disconcerting that so many, blinded by their political correctness and moral cowardice cannot see it.

Blog on!

Three Friends

The blogosphere has been good to me, having brought me a number of friends, some of whom I have met face to face.  For now I will mention just three. 

Having read my announcement that PowerBlogs will be shutting down at the end of November, Keith Burgess-Jackson kindly sent me a number of unsolicited e-mails explaining how I could import the  PowerBlogs posts, together with comments, en masse into this Typepad site.  I had forgotten that the Typepad platform allows for multiple blogs.  Keith's idea was simply to set up an archival blog and dump the old posts there.  As usual, the devil is in the details.  But a  careful perusal of his-emails gave me all the clues I needed to get this project underway.  Eventually, I will install a link to the PowerBlogs archive on my front page.

Keith is one my oldest blogospheric friends. We met early in 2004 not long after I had entered the 'sphere.  He has been more than kind in promoting my efforts over the years.  I fear that I have not reciprocated sufficiently.  So I want you to go to his site right now and read his current batch of offerings.  I should also mention that if it weren't for Keith I would never have met philosopher Mike Valle who lives a few miles from here. 

I can't recall how exactly I met Ed Feser; it may have been via Keith's old Conservative Philosopher group blog.  In any case, we have had a number of invigorating discussions.  We have our differences, but our common ground makes their exfoliation fruitful.  I am presently gearing up for another round as I study his latest book, Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide (One World, 2009), an inscribed copy of which he kindly sent me.  Ed chimes in on his blog in agreement with my recent rant about copy editors and their political correctness.  Please check it out.

Last but not least, Peter Lupu, who, though not a blogger, is the Real Thing as philosophers go.  Such birds are rarely sighted even within (especially within?) the academic aviary.  He discovered me via the old PowerBlogs site and left the best comments there that I have received in five years of blogging.  To my great good fortune he flourishes here in the Zone and we see each other regularly. Last Thursday he came by and we talked from 2 to 9 P.M.  He would have gone on til midnight had I let him.  I have met in my entire life only one other philosopher with whom I could have as deep and productive a discussion, and that is my old friend Quentin Smith who I met in my early twenties.  Like Smith an avis rara, Lupu has become the Smith of my late middle age.

So the blogosphere has been good to me.  Today's stats hit an all-time high of 1,212 page views.  I have nothing to complain about.  Thanks for reading.

Note to Long-Time Readers

I have just learned that PowerBlogs will shut down permanently on 30 November 2009.  Those of you who left comments at the old blog and who wish to copy them are advised to do so by the end of November.  Between now and then you may expect a flurry of reposting at this site as I bring over the posts that I consider worth preserving.  Quite a number have already been transferred, but, scribbler that I am, there remains an astonishing number left to revise and repost.

Feeble Stuff

Another motto for this weblog:

What I am writing here may be feeble stuff; well, then I am just not capable of bringing the big, important thing to light. But hidden in these feeble remarks are great prospects. (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 65)

rundangerously

An interesting blog I came across while looking up some Kerouac images.  From the masthead: "pain or love or danger makes you real again. ... the dharma bums."  By a soi-disant obsessive runner with a strong interest in the Beat Generation.  May also be a chess player and a conservative as images in his sidebar suggest.  A good source of running links.

I Must Not be a Serious Blogger

On the Typepad start-up page, there is the following come-on:

Are You a Serious Blogger? Prove it. Put ads on your blog to get paid for your hard work and give it a more professional look.

The underlying assumption is curious:  an activity is serious if it makes make money and because it makes money; the very same activity is unserious if it does not.  I expand on this theme in Work, Money, Living and Livelihood.  You will have guessed that I reject the assumption.

Not that I have anything against money or its (ordinate) pursuit.  Nor do I have anything against economic inequality. If your talent and hard work and good fortune have led you by legal means to a net worth  thousands of times greater than mine, then I salute you.  The notion that a legitimate function of government is wealth redistribution is a socialist abomination and of late an 'Obamination.'   I fail to see any good reason to accept John Rawl's Difference Principle, the thesis that socioeconomic inequalities are justified only if they make the worse off better off than they would have been without the inequalities.  There is no problem with economic inequality as such. 'Economic justice' is a junk phrase on a par with 'social justice.'

So my objection to the above assumption does not stem from any aversion to the lean green or its unequal distribution.  What I object to is a conceit found as much on the Left as on the Right, namely, that 'seriousness' and 'success' are spelled with dollar signs, that the only value is economic value.

Finally, the notion that ads give a blog a more professional look is absurd.  They are just so much distracting clutter.  And if they move,  it is even worse.  Ads are gimmicks to turn a buck; they make a site appear less professional and less serious.

Dunmovin and a Blogger's Final Post

Dunmovin is a California ghost town, now little more than a wide spot in the road on U. S. 395, one of my favorite highways.  I have driven past it many a time, but never stopped to explore, not that there is much there to explore.  But I thought of it today, did a search and found an interesting post, dated 15 September 2008, The Ghost Town of Dunmovin, California.

After reading the post, I brought up the current page of the Harry Helms Blog and was both surprised and saddened to find that the relatively young Mr. Helms is losing his battle with cancer.  Here is his farewell post. May we all accept our deaths with as much peace and equanimity.

Reasons to Blog

Different bloggers, different reasons.  I see this weblog as

1. An on-line notebook: a place to preserve and organize quotations from and notes on my reading.

2. An on-line journal: a daily record of the twists and turns of my intellectual life, along with some other sides of my life. A celebration of the life of the mind, an exemplification of the philosophical life. A record of one man's quotidian grappling with the world and its riddles.

3. A didactic site: a place where a serious and resolute reader can learn some philosophy for free.

4. A research site: a venue for trying out ideas and refining them in the teeth of critical comments.

5. An exercise in learning how to write better.

6. An experiment in what blogging might be good for.

7. A soapbox from which to deliver my commentary on the passing scene and do my bit to improve the world, one blog post at a time.

8. An open-ended project some of the purposes of which have yet to emerge.

From the Mail Pouch: Of Comments and Liberal Bias

A regular reader writes:

First, I've been enjoying your blog greatly since you disabled comments. Thank you for daring to do that. (I say dare because nowadays comments are all the rage, and are used as traffic boosters - usually to the detriment of a site.)

I knew my traffic would take a nose dive were I to disallow comments, but I don't blog for mere traffic.  Back in January and February, when I was discussing the ideas of Ayn Rand with comments allowed, there were days when my page view count was up around 2000.  Right now I am averaging about 670 page views per day.  The high numbers in January and February were in part due to the subject matter: Rand's ideas fascinate  adolescents of all ages.  But the quality of comments was so bad that it gave me yet another  reason to shut them off.

Second, a question. I know you're a philosophy professor who openly identifies as conservative. Is it your experience that universities are typically liberal-biased? As in, they intend to promote liberal views, indoctrinate students into liberal ideas, etc.

That is indeed my experience, but, quite apart from my experience, it is a fact that cannot be denied.  Conservatives are in the minority especially in the humanities and social sciences.  For example,  in the 2004 election, one survey showed that 87.6% of the social sciences professors queried voted for Kerry, while only 6.2% voted for Bush.  In the humanities, the numbers were 83.7% for Kerry and 15% for Bush.  

Third - assuming your answer to the previous is yes, even a qualified yes - do you think there is any moral difficulty with sending a child, particularly one who isn't intellectually prepared to defend him/herself from such indoctrination, to a university?

Curious of your views as a (seemingly rare) conservative philosopher.

Two quick points.  First, not all colleges and universities exhibit the same degree of liberal bias, and of course there are a few schools with the opposite bias.  So whether there is a moral problem or not will depend on where you send your child.  Second, much depends on the subject in which the student intends to major.  There is little or no liberal bias in the schools of business, engineering, and medicine.  Mathematics, computer science, physics and chemistry are also not amenable to ideological deformation.  (Of course, this won't prevent a liberal professor of these subjects  from airing his political and social views in the classroom.) But with the life sciences ideology begins to find a foothold.  (Would a Dawkins-type biology professor be able to keep his mouth shut about religion or be objective about global warming or race and IQ questions?)  When we get to the social sciences and humanities, however, we enter leftist-occupied territory.

Slow Thoughts in a Fast Medium

There is a bit of a paradox in my project, the blogging of philosophy. Sauntering along life's byways, cooling his heels at the margins of society, the philosopher bids us slow down! Whither the headlong mad rush? Quo vadis? Take thought, he suggests, take heed. Socrates knew how to stand stock still in the scene of strife and consult with his daimon. Wittgenstein, denounced in these pages as a Cave philosopher, yet had the good sense to recommend as salutation among philosophers, "Take your time!" (Der Gruß der Philosophen untereinander sollte sein: Laß dir Zeit! Vermischte Bemerkungen.) And in a place unknown to me, Franz Brentano, once a Catholic priest and no stranger to the contemplative disciplines, observes that "He who hurries is not proceeding on a scientific basis." (Wer eilt, bewegt sich nicht auf dem Boden der Wissenschaft.)

So in the belly of the blogospheric beast I too do my bit to slow things down.

'Blog' and 'Blog Post'

I note that there are still people who confuse 'blog' with 'blog post.'  'Blog' is elliptical for 'weblog.'   They are interchangeable terms.  Presumably, no one will refer to weblog entry as a weblog.  It makes as little sense to refer to a blog entry as a blog.   

A blog is composed of blog posts.  It is not itself a blog post, nor is a blog post a blog.  Roughly, a blog is to its posts as a book to its chapters.  Since you wouldn't refer to a chapter of a book  as a book, you shouldn't refer to a post on a blog as a blog.

Every weblog is a website, but not every website is a weblog. A weblog is a regularly updated website consisting mainly of relatively short entries called 'posts' which are arranged in reverse chronological order.  That's the essence of it.  Hyperlinkage and comments I would not build into the definition, nor would I require daily updating. You are free to differ.  I admit, though, that comments -- assuming you can attract people capable of making good ones -- and hyperlinks add considerably to a blog's interest.  As a general rule, if you are quoting from a source that is available online, you ought to link to it.

On Reverence

In The Weblog Handbook (Perseus Publishing 2002), Rebecca Blood writes:

If you asked me what the weblog community needs, I would answer, stronger ties among webloggers from various clusters, more independent thinkers, and more irreverence. Much, much more irreverence. Everyone seems to take themselves so seriously. (p. 164)

This passage demonstrates a pretty thorough misunderstanding of the concept of reverence. Blood appears to be confusing reverence with self-importance. Reverence, however, is more like the opposite of self-importance. Reverence is an attitude of honor, respect, devotion, deference toward a sufficiently lofty object distinct from one’s surface self. What Kant calls the moral law is an appropriate object of reverence. Like the starry skies above me, the moral law within me stands apart from, and superordinate to, my lower self. The divine, and anything or anyone sufficiently close to the divine, are also appropriate objects of reverence.

 

The truth is an appropriate object of reverence. A necessary condition of being a good journalist, for example, is reverence for the truth. A good journalist aims to establish the facts. Facts, by definition, are what they are regardless of what anyone believes them to be or desires them to be. The reverence appropriate to the competent and honest journalist has nothing to do with self-importance.

It is a commentary on the decadence of our culture that ‘reverence’ and ‘reverent’ have ceased to be terms of praise, and have almost become pejoratives. In tandem with this, ‘irreverence’ and ‘irreverent’ are constantly used nowadays to express approbation. Open up the New York Times Arts Section and read the blurbs on contemporary films and plays. Expressions like ‘witty and irreverent’ abound. The tacit message is that to be irreverent is good, and that there can be no form of reverence that is not either phony or hypocritical, or else devoid of an appropriate object.

In part this is due to the sort of confusion exemplified by Blood, the confusion of reverence with self-importance. Another part of the explanation is that the belief in reverence-worthy objects is on the wane in the upper echelons of our culture. Truth, for example, is no longer believed in by many. To the ears of decadents, all truth-claims ring hollow and are good only as fodder for deconstruction. Nietzsche clearly saw that the death of God is tantamount to the death of truth. (Cf. Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay, sec. 27.) It may be twilight time for the West as the reverse-Crusaders (as Oriana Fallaci calls them) gather to storm our gates. The owl of Minerva, spreading her wings at dusk, may take flight only to be decapitated by an Islamo-terrorist. But I’m not quite ready to enter into the Splengerian gloom or adopt the scowl of Minerva.

Allow Comments or Not?

This U. K. reader prefers no comments:

I 'm pleased that your blog no longer publishes readers' comments. Since this has been the case, I read it more assiduously. I usually find something in your daily observations and ruminations from which I can profit. When you used to allow even very well informed people to comment on what you had to say, my concentration withered and I was "turned off" by esoteric discussions of technical problems that interest professional philosophers. 

I think all serious bloggers should follow your example and exclude not only the vacuous and insolent wreckers who infest blogs, but also the erudite correspondents who can transform such as Maverick Philosopher into a kind of country club for intellectuals. 

 This U. S. reader prefers comments:

First of all, your blog is much more instructive than most of my formal education. Thank you for that.

 

However, recently you linked to your post on use and mention, and I followed the link and read the discussion.  Here is what I notice.  The educational value of any of your posts is exponentially compounded when there is a dialectic that follows.  The reason this is so is that when I can see someone who disagrees with you I can then see what positions they are forced to take in the dialectic.  Also because it highlights the distinction between good reasons and bad reasons for holding a position based on your responses. 

How to Judge a Blog

A weblog should be judged, not by the color of its 'skin,' but by the character of its content.

Philosoblog Update

Philosoblog's Jim Ryan offers a couple of delightful socialized medicine parody posts.  One. The Other.  Bear in mind that they are parodies.  There is a lot of good material in Jim's archives, so please do poke around. I have only one bad thing to say about Jim: he is a damned materialist about the mind!

The Spiritual Conservative

A new blog born on this Fourth of July.  Well worth a look, and open for comments.

If You Are Finding Things a Bit Dry Around Here . . .

. . . head over to What's Wrong With the World.  Feser on Leiter on Feser.  Feser et al. on Tiller.

Some bloggers warn their readers that 'blogging will be light.'  I should warn my readers that 'blogging will be dry and technical for the foreseeable future' as I work  my way through the recent free will literature.

I've never met a philosophical problem that didn't turn my crank.  How could anyone be bored in a world so riddled with philosophical difficulties?  There are no boring topics; there are only bored people.

World's Oldest Blogger Logs Off for Good

Maria Amelia Lopez, thought to be the world's oldest blogger, has died at the age of 97.  More here.  Her entry into the 'sphere occurred at a young 95 and appears to have given her a new lease on life.

I was reflecting just this morning on how enriching the World Wide Web has been for so many.  Without it, I would never have met Peter Lupu, the noble Philoponus, or Michael Valle, to mention just three who live within striking distance.

We should honor those whose intelligence and creativity and hard work have made it possible.  Tim Berners-Lee for example.  But how many have heard of him?  Instead, we hear ad nauseam about worthless nonentities whose empty celebrity is their only claim to fame.  Pick your favorite Hollywood airheads and Washington, D.C. politicos.  How about Nancy Pelosi?  She is both an airhead and a politico.

How Cyberpunks Argue

This thread is a representative sample. 

Five Years of Blogging

Actually, my 'blogiversary' was yesterday.  My inaugural post appeared on 4 May 2004.  My mind drifts back to some of my earliest acquaintances in the blogosphere. I am happy to see that most of them are still at it.  Here is a partial list:  Keith Burgess-Jackson; Gates of Vienna; Mangan's; Bill's Comments; Laudator Temporis Acti.

The erudite Dr. Michael Gilleland of Laudator Temporis Acti credits me with getting him going:

I started this blog just over three years ago, on May 10, 2004. Bill Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, was my inspiration. When I look back at my posts for that first day, I see some themes which I have revisited over the years: Luddism, scatology, and solitude.

Like Mike, I am drawn to the callipygian, but have no interest in the scatological as such.  I suppose every man has his wobble.  One might argue that a blog that does not display a bit of a man's wobble is no blog at all.  What we scribble here is loose and chatty and a little confessional.  Ecce homo! warts and all. One debates with oneself as to the proper proportion of the personal to the impersonal.  Mike strikes a nice balance.  But I note yet another excursus into the scatological in his recent post, An Effect of Fear, which he introduces with a quotation from Pseudo-Aristotle.

And now to all and sundry: Blog on!

On Comments

There are different blogging styles.  Some of my friends in the blogosphere allow all manner of trash to be dumped into their Comment Boxes sight unseen.  At the other end of the spectrum, one of my oldest blogging acquaintances, Keith Burgess-Jackson, allows only prescreened comments to appear.  My approach is a bit less draconian but still rather choosy.  At present my configuration is 'wide open' but I delete the substandard and block the offender.  Why should I tolerate rubbish?  If a man's home is his castle, his blog is his cybercastle.  And just as I don't allow any riff raff through my physical door, I don't allow any through my cyberdoor.

Your first comment is your letter of introduction.  On the basis of that I decide whether you are worth interacting with.  I am not interested in increasing my traffic as I get enough.  And I don't want a lot of comments.  I want a few good comments from people who are sincere and intelligent and basically agree with me on fundamentals.  Fruitful discussion and fruitful disagreement is possible only on the basis of broad agreement.  All the rest is polemics -- and philosophy is not polemics.

Let's say you are a PoMo idiot who denies the existence of truth.  What then could be the point of any discussion?  To get closer to (nonexistent) truth?  You say it's all power at bottom?  Then I will exercise my blocking power with respect to you and your idiocy.  Or perhaps you are a stupid leftist who thinks that 'religion is the problem' while making an exception for radical Islam.  Then you are not only stupid but contemptible and cowardly to boot. Discussion is not what you need; you need therapy.  Or perhaps you are an eliminativist in the philosophy of mind: you deny the existence of beliefs and desires.  Then I believe you are beneath refutation and I desire that you go away.  Or maybe you a sophistical qualia-denier like Daniel Dennett.  Pinch yourself and then report back.  Or adopt the 'intentional stance' with respect to yourself and self-ascribe some intelligent thoughts.

The Gypsy Scholar on Scruton on Islam and the West

In Scruton-izing the West, Horace Jeffery Hodges at his fine site Gypsy Scholar summarizes Roger Scruton's take on the differences between us and them.  Scruton finds seven key differences, the seventh of which, surprisingly, is alcohol.  Jeff provides substantial excerpts and of course links to Scruton's article. Well worth your time.  Jeff will be happy to accept your comments.

In Praise of Blogosophy

Philosophy is primarily an activity, not a body of doctrine. If you were to think of it as a body of doctrine, then you would have to say there is no philosophy, but only philosophies. For there is no one universally recognized body of doctrine called philosophy. The truth of course is one not many. And that is what the philosopher aims at: the one ultimate truth about the ultimate matters, including the ultimate truth about how we ought to live. But aiming at a target and hitting it are two different things. The target is one, but our many arrows have fallen short and in different places. And if you think that your favorite philosopher has hit the target of truth, why can't you convince the rest of us of that?

Thomas Mann on Blogging

Thomas Mann: Diaries 1918-1939 (Abrams, 1982, tr. R & C Winston), p. 194:

I love this process by which each passing day is captured, not only in its impressions, but also, at least by suggestion, its intellectual direction and content as well, less for the purpose of rereading and remembering than for taking stock, reviewing, maintaining awareness, achieving perspective . . . .

They Post Infrequently but Well

Jim Ryan and Franklin Mason, the proprietors of Philosoblog and The Philosophical Midwife respectively, are both analytically trained philosophers outside of academe.  Their weblogs are well worth reading.  Explore their archives: the things they write rise above the ephemeral.  I have my differences with both, and they with each other.  But the commonalities run deeper.  On the off-chance they are not acquainted, I'll hazard a cyber-introduction:  Jim, this is Franklin; Franklin, this is Jim.

Maverick Philosopher Makes The Times Online 100 Best Blogs List

A tip of the hat to Dave Lull for pointing me to A guide to the 100 best blogs - part I.  Maverick Philosopher makes the cut.  See page 5.  Excerpt:

Two good philosophy blogs make the point that this is a subject made for bloggery. Philosophy is arguing, and arguing is what bloggers and their readers do best — or at least a lot, in an obsessive-compulsive sort of way. Both are highly recommended if you fancy stepping out into an intellectual blizzard with, occasionally, real snow.

I will resist the temptation to comment except to thank Bryan Appleyard for his article and also the MP Commenter Corps.  Without them this site would be much less interesting. I have a half-marathon to run today, but later I hope to respond to at least some of the recent comments.

 

 

Why Do I Delete Comments?

Why do I delete comments? It is not because the commenter disagrees with what I say.  In Epistemic/Doxastic Possibility I floated a definition that commenter Andrew Bailey refuted. He blew it clean out of the water.  I acknowledged the refutation as soon as I became aware of it and proposed a different definition.  Bailey refuted that one too. The discussion proceeded from there with what I hope was mutual benefit.  Bailey's was an example of a good comment.

Would Schopenhauer Allow Comments?

If Schopenhauer were a blogger, would he allow comments on his weblog, The Scowl of Minerva?

I say no, and adduce as evidence the following passage that concludes his Art of Controversy, a delightful essay found in his Nachlass, but left untitled by the master:

As a sharpening of wits, controversy is often, indeed, of mutual advantage, in order to correct one's thoughts and awaken new views. But in learning and in mental power both disputants must be tolerably equal: If one of them lacks learning, he will fail to understand the other, as he is not on the same level with his antagonist. If he lacks mental power, he will be embittered, and led into dishonest tricks, and end by being rude.

The only safe rule, therefore, is that which Aristotle mentions in the last chapter of his Topica: not to dispute with the first person you meet, but only with those of your acquaintance of whom you know that they possess sufficient intelligence and self-respect not to advance absurdities; to appeal to reason and not to authority, and to listen to reason and yield to it; and, finally, to cherish truth, to be willing to accept reason even from an opponent, and to be just enough to bear being proved to be in the wrong, should truth lie with him. From this it follows that scarcely one man in a hundred is worth your disputing with him. You may let the remainder say what they please, for every one is at liberty to be a fool - desipere est jus gentium. Remember what Voltaire says: La paix vaut encore mieux que la verite. Remember also an Arabian proverb which tells us that on the tree of silence there hangs its fruit, which is peace.

Here is the same passage in the German original:

Das Disputieren ist als Reibung der Köpfe allerdings oft von gegenseitigem Nutzen, zur Berichtigung der eignen Gedanken und auch zur Erzeugung neuer Ansichten. Allein beide Disputanten müssen an Gelehrsamkeit und an Geist ziemlich gleichstehn. Fehlt es Einem an der ersten, so versteht er nicht Alles, ist nicht au niveau. Fehlt es ihm am zweiten, so wird die dadurch herbeigeführte Erbitterung ihn zu Unredlichkeiten und Kniffen [oder] zu Grobheit verleiten.

Die einzig sichere Gegenregel ist daher die, welche schon Aristoteles im letzten Kapitel der Topica gibt: Nicht mit dem Ersten dem Besten zu disputieren; sondern allein mit solchen, die man kennt, und von denen man weiß, daß sie Verstand genug haben, nicht gar zu Absurdes vorzubringen und dadurch beschämt werden zu müssen; und um mit Gründen zu disputieren und nicht mit Machtsprüchen, und um auf Gründe zu hören und darauf einzugehn; und endlich, daß sie die Wahrheit schätzen, gute Gründe gern hören, auch aus dem Munde des Gegners, und Billigkeit genug haben, um es ertragen zu können, Unrecht zu behalten, wenn die Wahrheit auf der andern Seite liegt. Daraus folgt, daß unter Hundert kaum Einer ist, der wert ist, daß man mit ihm disputiert. Die Übrigen lasse man reden, was sie wollen, denn desipere est juris gentium, und man bedenke, was Voltaire sagt: La paix vaut encore mieux que la vérité; und ein arabischer Spruch ist: »Am Baume des Schweigens hängt seine Frucht der Friede.«

Blogging as Exercitium Spirituale

And you thought blogging could only be a shameless expression of vanity?

But a quotidian assembling in this newfangled medium of reminders, admonitions, maxims and the like, performed in the right spirit, is no less a spiritual exercise than the daily jottings of a Marcus Aurelius.

Karl Kraus on Blogging

Karl Kraus, Beim Wort Genommen, p. 124:

Warum schreibt mancher? Weil er nicht genug Charakter hat, nicht zu schreiben.

Why do many write? Because they don't have enough character not to write. (tr. BV)

A Reason to Blog

Chary of embalming in printer's ink ideas that may be unworthy of such preservation, due perhaps to underdevelopment, or lack of originality, or some more egregious defect, the blogger satisfies his urge to scribble and publish without burdening referees and editors and typesetters, and without contributing to the devastation of forests. He publishes all right, but in a manner midway between the ephemerality of talk and the finality of print.

The Direction of This Weblog

This from a reader:

I have been following your blog for some time, from the move to PowerBlogs to the recent move to TypePad. I have two questions I'd like to ask:

First, are you going to post your opinions on the election? I have particularly enjoyed reading the reactions of several conservatives . . . . As such, I would love to hear your own thoughts on the issues.

Second, why have you never taken Brian Leiter to task? His utter distaste for anything conservative; his mockery of anyone who votes Republican as "war mongers," religious fanatics, etc.; his politicizing of philosophy, and his obsession for status, fame, and power; all these appear to run directly counter to everything you stand for and believe in. [. . .]

This e-mail gives me an opportunity to comment on the direction of this blog.

1. I am by nature apolitical. The political sphere impresses me as a realm of mendacity and illusion and a distraction from what truly matters, namely, one's self-actualization. At the moment this impression is very much in the ascendancy. This explains why I haven't posted anything about the election. Thus I expect this incarnation of Maverick Philosopher to contain less material on currect political events. But one cannot ignore this stuff since one's ability to live in freedom is put in jeopardy by government. So I will continue to keep an eye on developments and will speak out when sufficiently moved to do so.

2. I will however disallow comments on all posts except those of a technical philosophical nature. Discussions of politics and religion, and indeed of anything that cannot be precisely and rigorously articulated, are often a waste of time, and almost always a waste of time when there is insufficient common ground between the interlocutors.

3. My reader asks why I have never taken Brian Leiter to task. My reader and I seem to share the view that Leiter is a contemptible fellow, a status-obsessed careerist, and a living example of how corrupt academic philosophy can become. To pay any attention to him or his ravings would be a waste of time. I've done my bit to counter the ideas of the Left, and it is ideas, not persons, that count in the end.

The Presumptuousness of Blogging

Immanuel Kant, The Conflict of the Faculties/Der Streit der Fakultäten, tr. Gregor (University of Nebraska Press, 1979), p. 177:

To want to entertain others with the inner history of the play of my thoughts, which has subjective importance (for me) but no objective importance (valid for everyone), would be presumptuous, and I could justly be blamed for it.

There is no doubt about it: we bloggers are a presumptuous and vain lot. We report daily on the twists and turns of our paltry minds. In mitigation, a couple of points. First, I don’t force my posts on anyone. If you are here, it is of your own free will. Second, there is something fascinating to me about the origin of my own and others' ideas and how they in their abtractness percolate up out of the concretion of their authors' Existenz. The blogs of most interest to me combine the existential with the theoretical, the autobiographical with the impersonal. The question of the origin of ideas must not be confused with the question of their validity or lack thereof. (Got that, Fritz?) But both questions are fascinating, and how exactly they connect is even more so. Now if I find the intertwinement of the existential and the theoretical interesting, then perhaps you do as well; herein may reside some justification for reports on "the inner history of the play of my thoughts."

I oppose the nomenclature whereby individual weblogs (as opposed to group weblogs) are referred to as ‘personal’ weblogs. This blog is more impersonal than personal and I fret over the ratio. Objektive Wichtigkeit should predominate over subjektive. But by how much?

By the way, Streit der Fakultäten is a fascinating book. I’m an old Kant man; I wrote my dissertation on the ontological status of the transcendental unity of apperception in the Critique of Pure Reason. But it is only recently that I cracked The Conflict of the Faculties. This is a nice edition: German Fraktur on the left, good English translation on the right.