I’ve been reading Garry Wills‘ Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994; a light and entertaining read this election season) over the past couple of days–on the subway, naturally. On Monday night, as I rode back to Brooklyn from Manhattan to pick up my daughter on daycare, I came toContinue reading “An Unsettling Vision Of An Ugly Word”
Category Archives: Philosophy
John Dewey On The ‘Wonder’ Of Communication
In Experience and Nature (Chapter Five, ‘Nature, Communication and Meaning’) John Dewey writes: Of all affairs, communication is the most wonderful….[its] fruit…participation, sharing, is a wonder by the side of which transubstantiation pales. When communication occurs, all natural events are subject to reconsideration and revision; they are re-adapted to meet the requirements of conversation, whether it beContinue reading “John Dewey On The ‘Wonder’ Of Communication”
RIP Hilary Putnam 1926-2016
During the period of my graduate studies in philosophy, it came to seem to me that William James‘ classic distinction between tough and tender-minded philosophers had been been reworked just a bit. The tough philosophers were still empiricists and positivists but they had begun to show some of the same inclinations that the supposedly tender-mindedContinue reading “RIP Hilary Putnam 1926-2016”
Gramsci And Nietzsche As Philosophers Of Culture
In ‘Socialism and Culture’ (reprinted in The Gramsci Reader, Selected Writings 1916-1935, David Forgacs ed., New York University Press, 2000) Antonio Gramsci writes: We need to free ourselves from the habit of seeing culture as encyclopaedic knowledge, and men as mere receptacles to be stuffed full of empirical data and a mass of unconnected raw facts,Continue reading “Gramsci And Nietzsche As Philosophers Of Culture”
Artificial Intelligence And Go: (Alpha)Go Ahead, Move The Goalposts
In the summer of 1999, I attended my first ever professional academic philosophy conference–in Vienna. At the conference, one titled ‘New Trends in Cognitive Science’, I gave a talk titled (rather pompously) ‘No Cognition without Representation: The Dynamical Theory of Cognition and The Emulation Theory of Mental Representation.’ I did the things you do atContinue reading “Artificial Intelligence And Go: (Alpha)Go Ahead, Move The Goalposts”
Apple’s ‘Code Is Speech’ Argument, The DeCSS Case, And Free Software
In its ongoing battle with federal law enforcement agencies over its refusal to unlock the iPhone, Apple has mounted a ‘Code is Speech’ defense arguing that “the First Amendment prohibits the government from compelling Apple to make code.” This has provoked some critical commentary, including an article by Neil Richards, which argues that Apple’s argumentContinue reading “Apple’s ‘Code Is Speech’ Argument, The DeCSS Case, And Free Software”
Max Weber’s ‘Iron Cage’: Who Will Bend Its Bars?
Yesterday morning, as the students in my Social Philosophy class and I discussed an excerpt from Max Weber‘s The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit of Capitalism, we ran out of time. As my students got up and started to head out for their next commitment (work or the next class), I began reading out loudContinue reading “Max Weber’s ‘Iron Cage’: Who Will Bend Its Bars?”
‘Nausea’ And Psychedelia: Was Antoine Roquentin Tripping?
My re-reading of Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre‘s existentialist classic, for this semester’s independent study on existentialism has now prompted me to blog on it two days in a row. Today, I find myself returning to a question which I had first considered a couple of decades ago during my first reading of Nausea: Was Antoine RoquentinContinue reading “‘Nausea’ And Psychedelia: Was Antoine Roquentin Tripping?”
Jean-Paul Sartre On ‘An Odd Moment In The Afternoon’
In Jean-Paul Sartre‘s Nausea, Antoine Roquentin offers us a characteristically morose reflection about a very particular hour of the day: Three o’clock. Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do. An odd moment in the afternoon. Today it is intolerable. [New Directions edition, 2007; pp. 14] Monsieur Roquentin isContinue reading “Jean-Paul Sartre On ‘An Odd Moment In The Afternoon’”
My Daughter And The Hillary Clinton Candidacy
In the first draft of my review–forthcoming in Jacobin–of Doug Henwood‘s My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets The Presidency, I had included some lines that did not survive the first editorial take on my submission (I await, with some trepidation, the next editorial lowering of the boom.) Here is how it read: Hilary is no…Eleanor Roosevelt…sheContinue reading “My Daughter And The Hillary Clinton Candidacy”
Samir Chopra 