Our appreciation that the political is a limited sphere has left us at a disadvantage over against leftists for whom the political is the only sphere.
Month: May 2017
A Passion for Philosophy
If your passion for philosophy serves personal ambition, then your passion is in need of purification.
Is Cultural Optimism Justified?
Malcolm Pollack argues in the negative. I wish I could disagree. I am tempted to quote from Malcolm's beautifully written entry, but it's all good, so bang on the link. He is open for comments.
Stupid Catholics with a Death Wish
The Diocese of Orlando recently reprimanded a sixth grade teacher at a Catholic school for an “unfortunate exhibit of disrespect.” What did he do? He provided printouts to students of St. John Bosco’s negative assessment of Islam. St. John Bosco called Islam a “monstrous mixture of Judaism, Paganism, and Christianity,” and explained that Muhammad “propagated his religion, not through miracles or persuasive words, but by military force.”
Infested with leftist termites, the Church is in dire need of fumigation. Every Catholic church should display, instead of a sign prohibiting weapons — how stupid is that? — the following sign:
When Politics Becomes Like Philosophy
In philosophy everything is up for grabs. Our politics are becoming like this. There is less and less on which we agree. We can't even agree that nations need enforceable and enforced borders!
Widespread and deep-going lack of consensus in philosophy casts serious doubt on the cognitivity of the discipline, but is otherwise not that big of a deal as long as the controversies of the cognoscenti are confined to the ivory towers. Academic controversies rarely spill into the streets. No one literally gets up in arms over the correct analysis of counterfactual conditionals.
But widespread and deep-going lack of consensus among the citizens of a country can lead to civil war. The USA is now in a state of cold civil war; if it heats up it won't be pretty.
The denigrators of philosophy typically dismiss it as so much hot air. What they don't realize is that many if not most of the hot-button issues that exercise them are philosophical at bottom. To see what I mean, consider a few issues that divide Left and Right:
- For the Left, man is basically good; for the Right, he is not. The answer you give presupposes an answer to question number four on Kant's list: What can I know? What ought I do? What may I hope for? What is man?
- For the Left, (material) equality trumps liberty; for the Right it is the other way around. This is obviously a central question in political philosophy.
- For the Left, the differences between the sexes are socially constructed and therefore malleable; for the Right, socially constructed gender roles are secondary to biological and perhaps even metaphysical differences between males and females that cannot be socially engineered.
- For the Left, abortion is a woman's reproductive right; for the Right, the human fetus, at least in the later stages of its development, is a biological individual with its own right to life.
- For the Left, the purpose of art is to "challenge the status quo and bourgeois sensibilities"; for the Right, "to produce works of beauty and profundity to elevate the individual and society." (I quote from Dennis Prager.) Questions about the nature and purpose of art belong in aesthetics.
These are very deep philosophical disagreements. Time was, when most of us didn't disagree about them or even raise them as serious questions. But now these philosophical disputes are political disputes. In this sense our politics have become like philosophy.
Interesting times up ahead!
Related articles
Potemkin Universities
The universities are dead. Victor Davis Hanson:
At most universities, if a scheduled campus lecturer expressed scholarly doubt about the severity of man-caused global warming and the efficacy of its government remedies, or questioned the strategies of the Black Lives Matter movement, or suggested that sex is biologically determined rather than socially constructed, she likely would either be disinvited or have her speech physically disrupted. Campuses often now mimic the political street violence of the late Roman Republic.
Campus radicals have achieved what nuclear strategists call deterrence: Faculty and students now know precisely which speech will endanger their careers and which will earn them rewards.
The terrified campus community makes the necessary adjustments. As with the German universities of the 1930s, faculty keep quiet or offer politically correct speech through euphemisms. Toadies thrive; mavericks are hounded.
The true maverick, I should think, abandons the leftist seminaries and strives to keep the noble ancient values alive in some other way.
‘America First’ and the Values – Interests Distinction
I just read the following at The Atlantic:
[Rex] Tillerson explained “America First” this way. It applies to “national security and economic prosperity, and that doesn’t mean it comes at the expense of others.” This defies common sense. Surely, if we’re first, someone else is second, third, and finally last.
Not at all. A perverse misunderstanding fueled by anti-Trump bias. In January, I explained it like this:
It ['America First'] does not mean that that the USA ought to be first over other countries, dominating them. It means that every country has the right to prefer itself and its own interests over the interests of other countries. We say 'America first' because we are Americans; the Czechs say or ought to say 'Czech Republic first.' The general principle is that every country has a right to grant preference to itself and its interests over the interests of other countries while respecting their interests and right to self-determination. America First is but an instance of the general principle. The principle, then, is Country First. If I revert to America First, that is to be understood as an instance of Country First.
The Atlantic author does not approve of Tillerson's distinction between national interests and national values. But the distinction is easily defended. American values are superior to all others. But we ought to have learned by now that imposing them on others is not in our interest, whether in the aggressive way of Bush or the feckless and geo-politically know-nothing 'lead from behind' way of Obama.
Muslim and other nations are wedded to their own backward values and they are not about to abandon them for ours. Any attempt to teach them how to live will be interpreted as aggression, and by Muslims as 'crusading.' They are stuck deep in the past in their ancient hatreds, prejudices, and tribalisms. With the partial exception of Turkey, they were untouched by the Enlightenment, although Ataturk's revolution seems now to be failing as Turkey slides back toward the old ways.
Texting Their Lives Away?
I am currently reading, among other things, Kevin Mitnick, The Art of Invisibility, Little, Brown & Co., 2017. A treatise on cyber-security, it strikes me as slightly alarmist, but Steve Wozniak recommends it. I don't have to tell you who he is. The following, however, caught my eye and pricked my philosopher's skepticism:
A recent study found that 87 percent of teenagers text daily, compared to the 61 percent who say they use Facebook, the next most popular choice. Girls send, on average, about 3,952 text messages per month, and boys send closer to 2,815 text messages per month, according to the study. (pp. 72-73)
Could this be right? If you divide 31 into 3,952 you get 127.48. So is the average girl sending that many text messages per day? I don't believe it.
Mitnick in a foonote sends us to this Pew Research page where we read something rather more plausible:
The number of text messages sent or received by cell phone owning teens ages 13 to 17 (directly through phone or on apps on the phone) on a typical day is 30.5 The number of messages exchanged for girls is higher, typically sending and receiving 40 messages a day. And for the oldest girls (15 to 17), this rises to a median of 50 messages exchanged daily.
And notice that the Pew figure is for messages sent and received, while Mitnick speaks only about messages sent.
So how much credibility does Mitnick have? This little spot check of mine suggests that he slapped his book together rather quickly. But there is plenty to be learned from it.
We all need to slow down, unplug, and look at things.
One of my aphorisms gives good advice:
How to Look at Things
Look at them as if for the first time — and the last.
Once More on the Bogus Aristotle ‘Quotation’
The indefatigable Dave Lull delivers again.
But first Uncle Bill's lessons for the day:
1) Be skeptical of all unsourced quotations.
2) Do not broadcast unsourced quotations unless you are sure they are correct.
3) Verify the sources of sourced quotations.
4) Correct, if you can, incorrect 'quotations.'
5) Do not willfully mis-attribute! Or, like Achmed the Dead Terrorist, I KEEL you!
6) Don't use 'quote' as a noun; it is a verb.
Mr. Lull send us to Aristotle and accuracy where the following comment clarifies matters:
Robin Smith said…
You are correct that this quotation, in the form that seems to be all over the Internet now, is not a quotation from Aristotle: it's not even a loose translation of Nicomachean Ethics 1094b23-25. The English translation from which it has descended is as follows (I'm not sure whose this is):
"It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible."
In fact, this isn't a great translation, but at least it gets the sense right. Notice that the first eight words match the beginning of the spurious quote exactly (actually, the corresponding Greek is just two words, (pepaideumenou esti), one of which (esti) means "it is" and the other one of which (pepaideumenou) is translated "the mark of an educated mind". Since it's distinctive of this translation to supply "mind" instead of "man" or "person", I'm sure that's the source. In bouncing about the Internet, Aristotle's own quote has been transmogrified into something quite different that evidently resonates with many people. Just for the record, I am an academic in a philosophy department, I specialize in Aristotle, and I've published translations of some of Aristotle's works. –Robin Smith
I believe this is the Robin Smith I met at a Plato conference back in 1980. I am indeed blessed with, and grateful for, a good memory. You would expect that of a Platonist, right?
Our Three-Party System
The Democrats, the Republicans, and Trump.
Nulla Dies Sine Linea: Bad Medieval Latin?
No day without a line. Should it be nullus dies sine linea? I don't know. The maxim in the form nulla dies sine linea entered my vocabulary circa 1970 from my study of Kierkegaard. The Dane had taken it as the motto for his prodigious journals in the sense of 'No day without a written line.' I made the maxim my own, and long has she presided over my rather less distinguished scribbling.
Edward the Nominalist, whose Latin is better than mine, writes,
I spotted your post today, and wondered about the gender of ‘dies’. It is one of the only fourth declension nouns to have masculine gender, at least in the singular, which has caused misery to generations of Latin students. Technically it should be ‘nullus dies’, e.g. Nullus dies omnino malus / no day is altogether evil, unus dies apud Dominum sicut mille anni et mille anni sicut dies unus / one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day etc.
But the formulation is quite common, so I did some digging. It originates with a story by Pliny (Plin. Nat. 35.36) about the Greek painter Apelles, who apparently was steadfast in practicing his art. Pliny writes ‘It was a custom with Apelles, to which he most tenaciously adhered, never to let any day pass, however busy he might be, without exercising himself by tracing some outline or other; a practice which has now passed into a proverb’. Note that this is not about writing, but painting!
Although Pliny mentions the proverb, he never formulates it. The modern formulation seems to originate with the Latin of Erasmus and other late medieval writers, e.g. ‘Nulla dies abeat, quin linea ducta supersit.’ ‘Let no day pass by, without an outline being drawn, and left to remain.’ So the formulation may just be bad medieval Latin. Nikitinski (‘Zum Ursprung des Spruches nulla dies sine linea’,Rheinisches Museum 142: 430-431, 1999) has argued that if Pliny had formulated it, he would have written ‘nullus dies sine linea’
Very interesting: the maxim pertained to painting before its use in connection with writing. Other extensions are possible. One can imagine an erudite cokehead abusing the phrase along with his nostrils.
Dr. Michael Gilleland is a bona fide classicist besides being an "antediluvian, bibliomaniac, and curmudgeon." He offers a wealth of details and variant maxims here, but unless I missed it, finds no fault with the grammar of the nulla dies sine linea formulation.
True Whether or Not Aristotle (or Camus) Said It
Be skeptical of all unsourced quotations. Where did the Stagirite say this?
Jumping ahead a couple of millennia, one finds the following bogus Camus quotation on several of those wretched unsourced quotation websites:
"I would rather live my life as if there is a God, and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't, and die to find out there is." ~Albert Camus
Having read and taught Camus, I can assure you that the above is not something he could have said in his own voice. Did he put these words into the mouth of a character in one his novels or plays?
Paging Dave Lull.
UPDATE (5/6)
I had forgotten that I had already asked Dave about this and that he had already replied, in April of 2013:
I find no evidence that a statement of Camus' is translated thusly. I won't bore you with the things that I did (buoyed by my high tolerance of boring activity) before I finally went to Google Books and did inauthor: "Albert Camus" searches using combinations of various keywords and short phrases from this so-called quotation and got no statement even close. I even tried using Google Translate to translate it into French and then used combinations of various French keywords and short phrases and also got no statement even close. I'm not surprised. How about you?
Our hard-working researcher now provides us with the following:
From Giovanni Gaetani, “The noble art of misquoting Camus — from its origins to the Internet era,” Journal of Camus Studies 2015:
2) Camus a wise gambler after Pascal's example?‘I would rather live my life as if there is a God, and die tofind out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't, and dieto find out there is’.Dozens of disoriented readers doubted at first glance of the reliability of this quote, but none of them was capable of solving the enigma: someone assumed that ‘maybe Camus wrote it on some private letters’, few others noticed the similarity with Pascal's wager on the existence of God. Unfortunately, the author of this quote is for sure neither Camus nor Pascal. According to Google, the actual spreading of this quote dates back to the early 2000s, when it firstly appeared in some American Christian sites25. In 2006, the Bishop T. D. Jakes even invented a ‘8 seconds prayer’ chain letter using this quote26. Anyway, I did not manage to understand how and why Camus is considered the author of this quote.
A Broad Coalition of the Sane
In a comment thread I wrote,
We need a broad coalition of the sane which would include many libertarians, the few liberals who haven't lost their minds, and most conservatives, with each subgroup tempering its own tendency toward extremism.
Malcolm Pollack responded:
Multi-Racial but not Multi-Cultural
The USA cannot help but be a multi-racial society, but if we cannot agree on a common culture for public purposes with English as its official language and the values of the founding documents as its foundation, then the end is in sight. But collapse takes time and those of us in our mid-60s, assuming we don't live too long, should be able to weather the storm without too much stress.
Unfortunately, we no longer have the collective will to demand the assimilation without which immigration is a recipe for Balkanization. Any sane person should be able to see that the values of Sharia are incompatible with American values, and that no Muslims should be allowed to immigrate who are unwilling to accept and honor our values.
But it may already be too late since we don't even have the 'logically prior' collective will to put a stop to illegal immigration and the flouting of Federal immigration law by so-called 'sanctuary' cities and other jurisdictions. First stop illegal immigration, then worry about assimilation in connection with legal immigration.
Once more: improper entry into the country is already a violation of the criminal code. When the mayor of a great city, New York, refuses to deport illegal aliens who commit such serious felonies as driving while intoxicated, then you know that there is precious little common ground left.
We cannot agree on this? Then what can we agree on?
We conservatives can blame ourselves to some extent. We lost ourselves in our private lives while the destructive Left had its way.
Paradoxically, our appreciation that the political is a limited sphere has left us at a disadvantage over against leftists for whom the political is the only sphere.
Maverick Philosopher 13th Anniversary
I look forward to tomorrow and the start of Year 14. Operations commenced on 4 May 2004.
Can you say cacoethes scribendi?
I've missed only a few days in these thirteen years so it's a good bet I'll be blogging 'for the duration.' Blogging for me is like reading and thinking and meditating and running and hiking and playing chess and breathing and eating and playing the guitar and drinking coffee. It is not something one gives up until forced to. Some of us are just natural-born scribblers. We were always scribbling, on loose leaf, in notebooks, on the backs of envelopes, in journals daily maintained. Maintaining a weblog is just an electronic extension of all of that.
Except that now I conduct my education in public. This has some disadvantages, but they are vastly outweighed by the advantages. I have met a lot of interesting and stimulating characters via this blog, some in the flesh. You bait your hook and cast it into the vasty deeps of cyberspace and damned if you don't snag some interesting fish. The occasional scum sucker and bottom feeder are no counterargument.
I thank you all for your patronage, sincerely, and I hope my writings are of use not just to me. I have a big fat file of treasured fan mail that more than compensates me for my efforts.
I am proud to have inspired a number of you Internet quill-drivers. Some of you saw my offerings and thought to yourself, "I can do this too, and I can do it better!" And some of you have. I salute you.
And now some thoughts on this thing we call blogging.
1. In the early days of the blogosphere, over 15 years ago now, weblogs were mainly just 'filters' that sorted through the WWW's embarrassment of riches and provided links to sites the proprietor of the filter thought interesting and of reasonable quality. So in the early days one could garner traffic by being a linker as opposed to a thinker. Glenn Reynold's Instapundit, begun in August 2001, is a wildly successful blog that consists mainly of links. But there are plenty of linkage blogs now and no need for more, unless you carve out a special niche for yourself.
2. What I find interesting, and what I aim to provide, is a blend of original content and linkage delivered on a daily basis. As the old Latin saying has it, Nulla dies sine linea, "No day without a line." Adapted to this newfangled medium: "No day without a post." Weblogs are by definition frequently updated. So if you are not posting, say, at least once a week, you are not blogging. Actually, I find I need to restrain myself by limiting myself to two or three posts per day: otherwise good content scrolls into archival oblivion too quickly. Self-restraint, here as elsewhere, is difficult.
Here is my definition of 'weblog': A weblog is a frequently updated website consisting of posts or entries, usually short and succinct, arranged in reverse-chronological order, containing internal and off-site hyperlinks, and a utility allowing readers to comment on some if not all posts.
'Blog' is a contraction of 'weblog.' Therefore, to refer to a blog post as a blog is a mindless misuse of the term on a par with referring to an inning of a baseball game as a game, a chapter of a book as a book, an entry in a ledger as a ledger, etc. And while I'm on my terminological high horse: a comment on a post is not a post but a comment, and one who makes a comment is a commenter, not a commentator. A blogger is (typically) a commentator; his commenters are — commenters.
There are group blogs and individual blogs. Group blogs typically don't last long and for obvious reasons, an example being Left2Right. (Of interest: The Curious Demise of Left2Right.) Please don't refer to an individual blog as a 'personal' blog. Individual blogs can be as impersonal as you like.
3. I am surprised at how much traffic I get given the idiosyncratic blend I serve. This, the Typepad version of MavPhil, commenced on Halloween 2008. Since then the site has garnered 4.2 million page views which averages to 1,352 page views per day. In recent months, readership is around 1,300-1,700 page-views per diem with various spikes some up to 4,000 in a day. Total posts: 7,486. Total comments: 10,159.
4. How did I get my site noticed? By being patient and providing fairly good content on a regular basis. I don't pander: I write what interests me whether or not it interests anyone else. Even so, patience pays off in the long run. I don't solicit links or do much to promote the site.
Blogging is like physical exercise. If you are serious about it, it becomes a daily commitment and after a while it becomes unthinkable that one should stop until one is stopped by some form of physical or mental debilitation.
Would allowing comments on all posts increase readership? Probably, but having tried every option, I have decided the best set-up is the present one: allow comments on only some posts, and don't allow comments to appear until they have been moderated.
This was before the election of Trump. I wonder if Mr. Pollack is a bit more optimistic now.