Applied Epistemology - The Practice of Knowledge.

If you're in Rooney's philosophy 1 class

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:06:23 -0500

...you're on the wrong site. Click on the "Forums" link to the right.

The problem of evil

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:35:44 -0500

James Wood aptly observes: "Perhaps the disciples just meant more to Jesus than a few hundred thousand Asians." He does a good job explaining J.L. Mackie's old point that the free will defense is a total failure for traditional Christianity, since the notion of Heaven (e.g.) implies a world

Our brains think they know the future

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:42:51 -0500

...or, the key to all optical illusions.

Author, boxer, soldier, senator

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:06:09 -0500

The NYRB's Elizabeth Drew is evidently charmed by Jim Webb.

Mind-boggling innumeracy

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 16:11:50 -0500

On one of my last quizzes of the semester in critical thinking, I give the following example of bad reasoning (taken almost verbatim from a real think tank report I found on the web):

In 1964, when the bracero program ended, 86,597 people were apprehended by the INS for illegal immigration. In 1976, INS apprehensions were 875,915—a more than 1,000% increase. This indicates there was a significant rise in illegal immigration.

Obama by TKO

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:14:03 -0500

Jay Cost has, as usual, an excellent analytic perspective on the (mercifully ended) Democratic nomination.

Race in the 17th century

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:09:51 -0500

Justin Smith has written an interesting essay on early modern ideas about human races. I found especially suggestive his observation that the decline of cataclysm-based theories about race was a key step toward replacing myth with history.

Etymology, the first web

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 10:49:23 -0500

The things you discover when you're curious about Coney Island:

c.1200, from Anglo-Norm. conis, pl. of conil "long-eared rabbit" (Lepus cunicula) from L. cuniculus, the small, Sp. variant of the It. hare (L. lepus), the word perhaps from Iberian Celtic (classical writers say it is Spanish). Rabbit arose 14c. to mean the young of the species, but gradually pushed out the older word 19c., after British slang picked up coney as a synonym for "cunt" (cf.

Obama, the elitist

Fri, 09 May 2008 01:09:26 -0500

It's funny. When I assessed Obama's chances before the primaries began, I thought he'd never connect with ordinary folks; he has always struck me as sounding rather like, well, a typical liberal Oxy student (albeit a very articulate one). I felt it fairly likely, even as late as pre-Super Tuesday, that he would go the way of George McGovern and Gary Hart. But he has beaten the odds -- even after, surprisingly late in the campaign, his opponents finally realized that -- duh -- he is a classic Adlai Stevenson-style intellectual liberal Democrat. How did he manage to avoid the "elitist" label for so long? And how does he continue to deflect that angle of attack, even after his bluntly Frankfurt School "cling to religion and guns" remarks have become well-aired?

When Marvel was hard up

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:38:44 -0500

In the dark age of 1991, before Marvel produced its own movies, it produced an unspeakably bad licensed comic. Click on the links at the end of the article.

These police officers should be leveling up

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:26:08 -0500

...I mean, how many cops can say they've arrested sorcerers?

You get rich, then you cling to God

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:30:51 -0500

Obama and Thomas Frank appear to be flat-out wrong.

Sectarianism

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:03:07 -0500

Political philosopher Avishai Margalit has written a perceptive essay on the role of sectarianism in modern politics. An extended quote:

"The idea of the holy is the idea of that which is nonnegotiable. Commodities are divisible either physically or in terms of the duration of their use. What is divisible can be subject to compromise. We can split the difference. The idea of the sacred—at least in monotheistic religions—describes what is indivisible and hence not subject to compromise. If a fetus’s life is sacred, then no splitting of pregnancy into trimesters is allowed.

Maybe not using the word "doomed" would help

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:22:41 -0500

Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic organizing committee, on protesters: "It will definitely be criticized by people who love peace and adore the Olympic spirit. Their attempt is doomed to failure."

Who picks these PR people? Emperor Palpatine?

Solutions for America's short attention span

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:35:12 -0500

Clinton already lost my vote in the California primary -- by continuing the retarded Bush practice of labelling every flat surface in sight with vapid Orwellian slogans she will lose my vote even if she manages to become the nominee. Didn't