Sapere Aude!

From Less Than Human

From David Smith's Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others:

"During their journey through time, prehistoric humans acquired a range of mental aptitudes that we take for granted today, but which were almost certainly absent during the earliest stages of hominid evolution. These include the physical traits that are necessary conditions for dehumanization, namely;

1. A domain-specific folk biology module responsible for parsing the biology world into natural kinds (species) and making inferences about them.

2. A domain-specific folk sociology module responsible for parsing the social world into natural kinds (ethnoraces) and making inferences about them.

3. A domain-general capacity for second-order thought that makes it possible to reflect one's own mental states.

4. An intuitive theory of essences used to explain why there are natural kinds.

5. An intuitive theory of natural hierarchy (great chain of being) for ordering the natural world."

 

Philosophy in Mad Men

I've heard good things about Mad Men, and know there's a philosophy volume on the series.  But, I'd never seen it.  So, I rented it on Netflix and we're watching it now.  It seems pretty good, but we're only on the second episode. Gender roles are obviously a big issue on the show, and I can see how you could do a lot more with it philosophically speaking.  My wife has already mentioned a couple of times that she'd have been a troublemaker if she lived back then and referred to me as her property.  WTF?

Jennifer Burn on Ayn Rand on The Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jennifer Burns
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

I do not get why the Right would draw on such a crappy thinker as an intellectual resource when there are better examples of libertarian thought out there. Nor do I understand why so many of the Rand fans that I met have such a high regard for her thinking but so little awareness of the various criticisms of her thinking. There's a nice review of Anne Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made and Burn's Goddess of the Market here.  Some interesting tidbits from the review article are below the fold.

Jennifer Burn on Ayn Rand on The Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jennifer Burns
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

I do not get why the Right would draw on such a crappy thinker as an intellectual resource when there are better examples of libertarian thought out there. Nor do I understand why so many of the Rand fans that I met have such a high regard for her thinking but so little awareness of the various criticisms of her thinking. There's a nice review of Anne Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made and Burn's Goddess of the Market here.  Some interesting tidbits from the review article are below the fold.

Hillbilly Preacher to Bush Satanic Versions of the Bible

Hillbilly Preacher to Bush Satanic Versions of the Bible

Conservatizing the Bible

This conservatizing the Bible thing has got to be a joke, right?  If it's not then it's really, really sad.  I grew up holding the view that the King James Version of the Bible was a divinely inspired translation of the original Hebrew and Greek texts.  I don't those that view anymore.  In fact, I'm more inclined these days to think that something like the conservative Bible project has been instrumental in shaping what we know call the Bible in the sense that people's political, historical, cultural contexts influences how the Bible was put together.  But, if I did still hold that view of the Bible, the Conservative Bible Project would still bother me.

Conservatizing the Bible

This conservatizing the Bible thing has got to be a joke, right?  If it's not then it's really, really sad.  I grew up holding the view that the King James Version of the Bible was a divinely inspired translation of the original Hebrew and Greek texts.  I don't those that view anymore.  In fact, I'm more inclined these days to think that something like the conservative Bible project has been instrumental in shaping what we know call the Bible in the sense that people's political, historical, cultural contexts influences how the Bible was put together.  But, if I did still hold that view of the Bible, the Conservative Bible Project would still bother me.

More Bad Commentary from a Conservative Philosopher

A conservative philosopher comments on Raymond Geuss' book Political Philosophy and Real Politics:

Does Professor Geuss think that only ordinary people, i.e., nonintellectuals, labor under illusions? (Recall Barack Obama's quip about the people of Pennsylvania "cling[ing] to their guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them.") What about the Marxist illusion of class conflict? What about the progressive illusion of the blank slate? What about the feminist illusion of the indistinguishability of the sexes? What about the egalitarian illusion that there are no races? Do intellectuals such as Professor Geuss see through their own illusions? If not, then they are in no better shape than the ordinary people on whom they look down.

What's with the Tu Qouque, numb-nuts?

More Bad Commentary from a Conservative Philosopher

A conservative philosopher comments on Raymond Geuss' book Political Philosophy and Real Politics:

Does Professor Geuss think that only ordinary people, i.e., nonintellectuals, labor under illusions? (Recall Barack Obama's quip about the people of Pennsylvania "cling[ing] to their guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them.") What about the Marxist illusion of class conflict? What about the progressive illusion of the blank slate? What about the feminist illusion of the indistinguishability of the sexes? What about the egalitarian illusion that there are no races? Do intellectuals such as Professor Geuss see through their own illusions? If not, then they are in no better shape than the ordinary people on whom they look down.

What's with the Tu Qouque, numb-nuts?