How do different human rights records compare?… Read the rest
Can Science Be Funny?
Jun 9th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWell obviously! The Far Side, Hitchiker’s Guide, the Fashionable Dictionary…… Read the rest
Scientists Observe Speciation
Jun 9th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNervous breakdowns for creationists predicted.… Read the rest
Fantasyland
Jun 8th, 2004 11:00 pm | By Ophelia BensonI’m still pondering this link between Theory of Mind and – and a lot of things: imagination, social cognition, lying, pretending. And via those things it links to even more things – empathy, story-telling, literature and art, religion, politics, manipulation, coalitions – really pretty much everything that has to do with humans as conscious intentional reflective social beings. It all starts with this ability to realize that Other Minds are other minds.
This all raises a number of thoughts or questions. A reader (who has a post on a related subject on his own blog) mentioned this article by Pascal Boyer.
… Read the restSocial interaction requires the operation of complex mental systems: to represent not just other people’s beliefs and their
Neither a Fox nor a Hedgehog
Jun 8th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHitchens recalls the Reagan years.… Read the rest
Bishops Throwing Their Weight Around
Jun 8th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSecularism versus theocracy in an election year.… Read the rest
What to Call Our Contemporaneity
Jun 8th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonZygmunt Bauman on modernity, postmodernity, post-late modernity.… Read the rest
What if You Pray Your Fraud Will Go Undetected?
Jun 8th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonResearcher in flawed study of efficacy of prayer pleads guilty in unrelated fraud case.… Read the rest
Latin America Expert Quits in Protest
Jun 7th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAccuses Kissinger and friends of silencing him in debate over US intervention in Chile.… Read the rest
Historical Literacy Left Behind
Jun 7th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTeaching to the test means students learn skills at expense of knowledge.… Read the rest
National ‘Public’ Radio
Jun 7th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHow to make public service commercial? Easy – redefine ‘public service.’… Read the rest
Bruce Grant on ‘Intelligent Design’
Jun 6th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe first step on the road to theistic science.… Read the rest
Names
Jun 5th, 2004 10:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere is a review by Mary Midgley of a new book by Judith Butler in the Guardian. Midgley has a special place in our affections here at B&W, since in a sense she named it. In another sense of course she didn’t, Al Pope did, because she was quoting him, but in the sense that matters she did, because her use of the quotation is what the Namer of B&W had in mind. Actually the Namer and I have had many violent brawls on the subject, with books thrown and fists pounded on desks and screams screamed and horrible wounding insulting things said. No not really, I’m only joking, because it’s Saturday. But it’s almost true. I have received many … Read the rest
Twenty Best New Poets
Jun 5th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Next Gens can expect a rough ride from the postmodernist hardliners…’… Read the rest
New Poets Can be Wrinkly
Jun 5th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOne can start writing poetry at any age.… Read the rest
Mary Midgley Reviews Judith Butler
Jun 5th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhat is gained by translating familiar terms into exotic abstract language?… Read the rest
Late-term Abortion Ban Ruled Unconstitutional
Jun 5th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJudge calls it ‘grossly misleading and inaccurate’ to equate banned procedure with infanticide.… Read the rest
Mind Your Peas and Kews
Jun 4th, 2004 9:17 pm | By Ophelia BensonHere’s an amusing bit of serendipity. I just added a quotation to Quotations and only after posting it (and doing various other tasks) realized it’s highly relevant to a little argument we were having the other day about the importance and value of precision in language. My colleague posted a Comment which made much of the difference between saying ‘a something’ and ‘the something.’ He also pointed out that ‘Precision of language matters, if you want to be understood.’ That seems like such an obvious, incontrovertible statement, doesn’t it? But people do attempt to controvert it. People in fact actually mocked the idea of making anything of the difference between ‘a’ and ‘the’.
Very well. Behold that Stanley Fish quotation … Read the rest
Buffy Conference in Nashville
Jun 4th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPhysicists, philosophers, theologians spoke on Buffy’s themes of redemption, mortality, evil.… Read the rest
Ian Hacking Reviews Antonio Damasio
Jun 4th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIs the mind an organ in the brain?… Read the rest