Ah, look, an old friend returns. At that post of Stephen Law’s on Anselm’s proof we talked about the other day. Old friend returns in characteristic form – posting thirty or forty thousand words in each comment, talking about hermeneutics and Gadamer and Hermamer and gadaneutics until the wallpaper starts to peel spontaneously off the walls in very sympathy. He’s also got some new tricks though – mentioning ‘G_d’ a lot, overusing scare quotes or irony quotes beyond all reason, lots of quiet boasting. I wonder if you’ve guessed which friend I mean yet – I wonder if your memories are keen this morning. He used to deposit his book-length comments here often, often; he did it for … Read the rest

Anthony Grayling on sin and pollution – always very interesting ideas.

Much of the traditional idea of sin persists in our contemporary attitudes to moral failure. We somehow export the idea of a stain, an enduring flaw of character, to the case of people who do not live up to ideals, especially those they themselves proclaim…[I]n a sin culture even the suspicion of hypocrisy in the messenger is enough to harm the message: if the source of the claim is polluted, the claim itself must be questionable…Throughout history earnest moralisers have stood in the way of the good by accepting nothing less than the utmost. Human beings are a mixed alloy: the same person is capable of being good and

Ah, the Templeton prize. What a treat.

A Canadian philosopher who believes that spirituality is an essential part of the study of philosophy and the social sciences has won the $1.5 million Templeton Prize for advancement and research of spiritual matters.

Okay; first pressing question; what does that mean? What is spirituality? Depending on how it’s defined, either, of course it’s an essential part of the study of philosophy and the social sciences, or what on earth does he mean it’s an essential part of the study of philosophy and the social sciences?

Professor Taylor has written extensively on the sense of self and how it is defined by morals and what one considers good. People operate in the

This interview with Martha Nussbaum is full of interesting stuff.

I find that the US is in a way one of the most difficult places for philosophy to play a public role because the media are so sensationalistic and so anti-intellectual. If I go to most countries in Europe I’ll have a much easier time publishing in a newspaper than I would in the US. The New York Times op-ed page is very dumbed down and I no longer even bother trying to get something published there because they don’t like anything that has a complicated argument.

Undeniable, and depressing, and irritating. This is one reason we have to laugh loudly and scornfully whenever the NY Times tells us (as … Read the rest