Hitchens I’ve just finished reading Christopher Hitchens’ Hitch 22, a sad but stimulating experience. Among many sage observations, he tells us how much he values a sense of the absurd and an ironic mind, as well as linguistic playfulness. Despotisms always seem to be literal-minded, pedestrian, humorless, and linguistically repressive—as well as fanatical and violent. […]
KNOWING AND NECESSITY I hope that some people see no connection between the two topics in the title.[1] In any case, the absence of any connection will be developed in the course of the paper—a complete and clean separation. The way I think about these matters is, in some ways, quite different from what people […]
The Science of Philosophy What is the nature of philosophy? Two views have been influential. One view is that philosophy is “continuous with science”–a kind of proto science or a commentary on the sciences or a synthesis of them.1 According to this view, philosophy is an empirical discipline, though more removed from the data than typical […]
This digit is a fine upstanding member of the manual community, with many beneficial uses, though it must be admitted that some dubious employment has been made of it. The Order has attempted to discourage such employment, and certainly we do not allow it among our membership. In any case, no prospective member of the […]
People say travel broadens the mind. But this is not quite accurate: theexperiences one has while traveling do the broadening, not the mere displacement of one’s body through space. But then it is the mental aspect that constitutes the benefit. And presumably this has to do with the richness and novelty of the experiences and thoughts that […]
Reading Martin Amis’s perceptive essay on Anthony Burgess’s Clockwork Orange in today’s New York Times made me wonder about the influence of that novel on my novelBad Patches. Alex is a gleefully evil character who narrates his own depravity in unforgettable prose. My antihero Dave also narrates the less spectacular story of his merely poor character–in what […]
Human intelligence–including complex language, advanced tool use, and elaborate social organization–is clearly among the most powerful adaptations ever to evolve on planet earth. So why is it unique to the human species? One would think that such a powerful set of traits would be extremely useful to almost any species, yet no others have evolved […]
