Blogging – Page 8 – Maverick Philosopher

Popular Science: No Comments are Good Comments

Popular Science closes its combox.

A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate" on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.

Certainly, not everything is up for grabs, i.e., not everything is a topic of reasonable debate. But it is equally certain that some things are up for grabs, and also certain that what is up for grabs and what is not is up for grabs. (Think about it.)

So while I applaud the closing of the Popular Science combox as the closing of a repository for what in the main is the drivel of cyberpunks and know-nothings, I must express skepticism at the incipient dogmatism and incipient scientism that lurks beneath both the author's words and those of the author of the NYT piece to which he links.

To mention just one item, talk of "scientific certainty" with respect to climate change, its origins, and its effects is certainly unscientific. Natural science is not in the business of generating certainty on any topic, let alone something as difficult to study as climate change.

No gain accrues by replacing religious and political dogmatism with scientistic dogmatism.

To say it again: doubt is the engine of inquiry. Inside of science and out.

Unfortunately, too much of present day 'science' is ideologically-infected. Global warming alarmism is yet another ersatz religion for liberals. See here. Of course, I also condemn those conservatives and libertarians whose knee-jerk rejection of global warming is premised on hostility to any empirical finding that might lead to policies that limit the freedom of the market.

Companion post: Would Schopenhauer Allow Comments?

5088 Pageviews Today

What explains the surge? Damned if I know. My usual traffic is around 1600 per day. I thank all and sundry, man and bot, for their patronage.

Two Million Pageviews

This morning the Typepad version of Maverick Philosopher shot past the two million pageview mark. This, the third main version of MavPhil, commenced operations on 31 October 2008. The first main version took off on 4 May 2004.

To be exact, total pageviews at the moment are 2,000,523. That averages to 1161.74 per day with recent averages well above that. Total posts come to 4433, total comments to 6502.

I thank you for reading.

My pledge: You will never see advertising on this site. You will never see anything that jumps around in your visual field. I will not beg for money with a 'tip jar.' This is a labor of love and I prize my independence.

I also pledge to continue the fight, day by day, month by month, year by year, against the hate-America, race-baiting, religion-bashing, liberty-destroying, fascists of the Left. As long as health and eyesight hold out.

I will not pander to anyone, least of all the politically correct.

And I won't back down. Are you with me?

Technorati Ranking

Technorati ranks Maverick Philosopher at #185 of 8,735 U.S. politics blogs, and at 476 of 21,024 world politics blogs. For purposes of comparsion, Michelle Malkin sits at #7 of U. S. politics blogs.

Not too shabby. Meanwhile readership approaches two million total pageviews for this, the third major incarnation of MavPhil.

Needless to say, I don't see this blog as primarily about politics. But politics matters like waste disposal matters, and one ought not go quietist, even if one is on balance a quietist, when the world is drowning in a crapload of stupidity, ignorance, and political correctness.

After Aristotle

The proprietor and author of the weblog After Aristotle writes,

Having retired after decades as an academician in various capacities, both administrative and professorial, at a small college in Massachusetts, I am dedicating the next three decades or so of my life to the fullest exploration possible of all that philosophy has to offer.

Bravo! Wise move. A human life should not be wasted on useless administrivia and teaching the unteachable in an age when so-called universities have forgotten their classical mission and have degenerated into leftist seminaries.

I get mail from people who are in a position to retire but hesitate out of fear of not having enough money. My advice to them is that since death can come without warning, "like a thief in the night," they ought to take the plunge. James Gandolfini died young at 51. When he woke up on the last morning of his life did he think it was to be his last?

The question to ask yourself is this: In what state will death find me? Grubbing for more loot? Or living the best life I can live pursuing the highest ends I am able to pursue?

"The trouble is, you think you have time." (attributed to Buddha)

Year Ten Begins: In Praise of Blogosophy

Today I begin my tenth year as a 'blogosopher.' Traffic is good: rare is the day when the page view count drops below 1200, and there are numerous surge days above 2000. I'm in this game 'for the duration,' as they say: as long as health and eyesight hold out.

In Praise of Blogosophy

Philosophy is primarily an activity, not a body of doctrine. If you were to think of it as a body of doctrine, then you would have to say there is no philosophy, but only philosophies. For there is no one universally recognized body of doctrine called philosophy. The truth of course is one not many. And that is what the philosopher aims at: the one ultimate truth about the ultimate matters, including the ultimate truth about how we ought to live. But aiming at a target and hitting it are two different things. The target is one, but our many arrows have fallen short and in different places. And if you think that your favorite philosopher has hit the target of truth, why can't you convince the rest of us
of that?

Disagreement does not of course prove the nonexistence of truth, but it does cast reasonable doubt on all claims to its possession. Philosophy aspires to sound, indeed incontrovertible, doctrine. But the quest for it has proven tough indeed. For all we know it may lie beyond our powers. Not that this gives us reason to abandon the quest. But it does give us reason to be modest and undogmatic.

Philosophy, then, is primarily an activity, a search, a quest. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kant remarks that "Philosophy cannot be taught, we can at most learn to philosophize." I agree. It cannot be taught because it does not exist as teachable doctrine. Philosophy is not something we profess, except perhaps secondarily; it is something we do. The best professors of philosophy are doers of philosophy. A professor, obviously, need not be a paid professor, an academic functionary.

How then should we do philosophy? Conversation face-to-face with the like-minded, intelligent, and sincere is useful but ephemeral and often hard to arrange. Jetting off to conferences can be fun especially if the venue is exotic and the tab is picked up your department. But reading and listening to papers at conferences is pretty much a waste of time when it comes to actually doing productive philosophy. Can you follow a technical paper simply by listening to it? If you can you're smarter than me.

So we ought to consider the idea that philosophy in its purest form, its most productive form, is 'blogosophy,' philosophy pursued by weblog. And there is this in favor of it: blogging takes pressure off the journals. Working out my half-baked ideas here, I am less likely to submit material that is not yet ready for embalming in printer's ink.

666 at 6

Already 666 pageviews at 6 AM. Good thing I consider numerology buncombe. And that 24/7/365.

The Joy of Blog

Blogging attracts the like-minded, some of whom one meets face-to-face. Sunday's breakfast has long since passed through the mortal coil, but I am still digesting the thoughts and insights of Peter and Steven. I would never have met these wonderful people had it not been for this weblog.

You bait your hook and cast your line into the vasty deep. Occasionally you snag a scum-sucker or bottom-feeder. But they are easily dealt with. Your patience is rewarded when you hook unto yourself a worthy denizen of Neptune's realm.

The Conservative Sociologist

'Conservative sociologist' smacks of an oxymoron, does it not? So just for fun this morning I typed the phrase into my search engine of choice and was directed to The Conservative Sociologist where I encountered the graphic below. The proprietor of the site is of the female persuasion. We need more distaff bloggers, though not a federal program to encourage them.

High-Level Self-Denial

Going to the mat of meditation at the appointed time when the caffeine-induced riot of thoughts clamors for blogic expression.

One Thing You Won’t Blog About

Nothing is not fodder for the omniloquacious blogger. Nothing but one thing: his being dead.

Not MavPhil Material

'Heisse Lisa' left a self-promoting junk comment that I promptly deleted. If you call yourself 'Hot Lisa' or 'Shithead,' that by itself is grounds for banishment. A little self-deprecation is good, but if you announce by your handle that your skull is feculent, then you demonstrate thereby that you are not MavPhil material.

2606 Pageviews at 5:55 A.M.?

I don't get it. Ostrich nominalism is not that hot a topic.

By the way, my ComBox is not for your self-promotion. Try it, and you will have wasted your time. Comment moderation is on, and I have an itchy 'delete finger.' Trackbacks are off. What a worthless utility that turned out to be.

How to Read an Online Article Without Distraction

I thank long-time blogger buddy Bill Keezer for pointing out something that should have been obvious. To read an online article at a money-grubbing site such as NRO, a site awash with advertising, moving images, noise, and what all else, click on the 'print' icon. The article should appear without the junk. But you knew that already.

I may not have the prettiest 'skin' in the 'sphere, but at my site you will find no advertising, begging, moving images, noise . . . just solid content day after day, year after year.

As one of my aphorisms has it, a blog is to be judged, not by the color of its 'skin' but by the character of its content.

I thank you for your patronage. Rare is the day when traffic dips below 1000 pageviews. In recent days spikes have been in the 3000-4000 range. 2012 was a banner year.

UPDATE: The ever-helpful Dave Lull e-mails:

Usually I prefer using the free Readability browser add-on (the page formatted for printing is often too wide for me to read comfortably and is sometimes not an option):

http://readability.com/addons

Traffic Surge

Today I received 4845 page views. Yesterday's tally was 2659. Why the surge? I have no idea. I don't reckon there's a whole lot of interest in constituent ontology out there in cyberland.

But I do humbly thank all and sundry, human and robotic, for their kind patronage.