Kluge prize goes to historian Jaroslav Pelikan and philosopher Paul Ricoeur.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
100 Trillion Synapses and Real Experiences
Nov 30th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Computers could write novels, but they would probably be on the dull side.… Read the rest
How Dare They
Nov 30th, 2004 12:15 am | By Ophelia BensonLet’s take a look at a letter from Judith Butler to the New York Times on that UC Irvine site to apotheosise Derrida. The letter is quite short, but full of matter. Dense with significance. Significance oozes out of every word.
Jonathan Kandell’s vitriolic and disparaging obituary of Jacques Derrida takes the occasion of this accomplished philosopher’s death to re-wage a culture war that has surely passed its time.
A culture war. That’s significant. That implies that the only reason to say anything critical about Derrida or his reputation and standing, is that one is a cultural warrior, i.e. a right-winger. That doesn’t happen to be true; it’s not even close to true; saying it is merely a rhetorical way … Read the rest
Mark Your Calendar
Nov 29th, 2004 7:10 pm | By Ophelia BensonBookshop barnie. Eh? I don’t know; that’s what it’s called. Don’t ask me. But anyway – chance of a lifetime.
… Read the restThe next debate, on January 20th 2005, will be held at the London Review of Books bookshop in Bury Place, WC1.Here Jeremy Stangrom, co-founder of The Philosophers’ Magazine, will speak to the themes of his new book, written with Ophelia Benson: The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense: A Guide for Edgy People October, 2004. This should ease us into the New Year, with questions whether this sort of book challenges, undermines or reinforces dumbing down. Barnies attract around fifty seated guests for a close up and personal discussion on the themes thrown up by a particular book. You don’t have
Environmental Study ‘Clears’ GM Crops
Nov 29th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Study also found potential benefits to farmers of growing GM crops.… Read the rest
Study Finds Benefits in GM Crops
Nov 29th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
And no evidence that they harm the environment… Read the rest
John Gray Reviews Alister McGrath on Atheism
Nov 29th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
And makes one dubious assertion after another.… Read the rest
Mark Bauerlein Reviews Just Being Difficult?
Nov 29th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Outside the tiny group of academic theorists, the question is closed.’… Read the rest
The Derrida Industry…
Nov 29th, 2004 | By Brian Leiter…has been working overtime to salvage the reputation of their man. Things are so bad that Joan Scott–who I’m told is a substantial historian, but apparently not much of a philosopher–actually wrote the following to The New York Times:
[Your obituary writer] is embarrassingly illiterate in the history of philosophy. His obituary is also terribly one sided. I thought the Times was committed to balance. Where are the appreciative quotes from American philosophers and literary critics? From those (and there are many) who have used his work to great effect and taught whole generations of students how to read [sic] differently [i.e., badly]?
The obituary author may, indeed, be ignorant of the history of philosophy, but certainly no more … Read the rest
There is a Reason
Nov 29th, 2004 2:49 am | By Ophelia BensonI should have dug this up sooner.
Here is a petition/memorial for Derrida at the University of California at Irvine. A great many signatures from literature professors…and very few philosophers. That’s fine; no harm in being a literature type, or having a memorial thingy; only he does get called a ‘world-renowned philosopher’ and the like, quite a lot. But mostly only by people in other departments. One can’t help suspecting that all those non-signatory philosophers know something that the literature people don’t quite grasp…
Brian Leiter for example. Here and here and here and here. And Leiter, entirely unlike me, has actually read the guy. So he confirms my suspicions. Yes, there is a reason why it’s literature people … Read the rest
My Suspicions are Awakened
Nov 28th, 2004 9:29 pm | By Ophelia BensonDo us a favour, if you feel like it and have a minute. I’ve heard from two readers who have written good reviews of the Dictionary at Amazon. Neither one has shown up; one was several days ago, the other was a week and a half ago. So the one-star just sits there uncontradicted all this time. Hmm…that seems odd. So if anyone else has written a favourable review that hasn’t shown up, perhaps you could let me know. I’m just curious…… Read the rest
Centre for What?
Nov 28th, 2004 9:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonFrances Stonor Saunders makes a pointed comment in the Observer.
… Read the restLast week came an announcement from the University of London’s Birkbeck College that it intends to establish a centre for public intellectuals…But what exactly is a public intellectual? Unfortunately, Birkbeck doesn’t tell us. There’s some woolly stuff about the centre putting itself at the ‘forefront of current intellectual debate’, about making ‘public intervention on issues of current importance’. The centre’s inaugural project will be a series of lectures honouring the life and work of Jacques Derrida. A centre for public intellectuals needs a public to address. By focusing on Derrida, whose work took impenetrability to dizzying heights, Birkbeck is clearly signalling that by ‘public’ it means elitism on a platform.
Zimbabwean Children Sell Their Bodies
Nov 28th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
To get food for themselves and their siblings.… Read the rest
Cunning Plan for Zimbabwe: Obesity Tourism
Nov 28th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Will obese tourists pay to do manual labour on land seized from white farmers?… Read the rest
What College Students Learn About Science
Nov 28th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Philip Mole says credulity is the consequence of incomplete education.… Read the rest
Frances Stonor Saunders on Public Intellectuals
Nov 28th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Derrida may be ‘elitism on a platform’ but fatal compromise is worse.… Read the rest
Tribal Sentimentalism a Threat to Democracy
Nov 28th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A Wala feels superior to a Dagarti, the Dagombas and Gonjas feel superior to neighbours, the Asante feel superior to the lot.… Read the rest
What to Do About Chelsea Tractors
Nov 28th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Try health-warning labels.… Read the rest
Belief
Nov 27th, 2004 8:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere’s a larger subject lurking behind (and propping up, motivating, triggering, etc) a lot of the issues we’ve been discussing lately. Belief. Belief in the sense of belief full stop, belief tout court, belief undefended and unexplained. Belief just because; belief because I said so; belief as intuition or instinct or inner voice or gnosis; belief that doesn’t have to give an account of itself; belief that is self-justified, which in other kinds of discourse is called a vicious circle or begging the question. The kind of thing Mill quotes Bentham teasing:
… Read the restOne man says, he has a thing made on purpose to tell him what is right and what is wrong; and that it is called a
It’s Up to Five
Nov 27th, 2004 6:06 pm | By Ophelia BensonUpdate on update. Just by way of reporting, because I think it’s interesting, as a display of apparently unembarrassed irrationality and Bad Argument. I mean, this is a guy who teaches philosophy, at a university; a guy who, one of our readers reports, has written a book about bad arguments. And yet here he is. He doesn’t have time to answer everyone who disagrees with him, he wrote yesterday, and yet so far he has posted no fewer than five complaints about ‘the lack of decency, civility, and common sense’ and the illogic of people at Crooked Timber who take exception to his doggy analogy. And yet the posts at CT are in fact substantive; B-J could easily have addressed … Read the rest