Aware is finished. Now for something different 14 May 202414 May 2024 So I finished presenting the book Aware on my substack, which will now ferment in my bottom drawer (metaphorically) until it ripens. While that is happening I am preparing to edit some nineteenth century sources for discussions of classification, taxonomy, species, higher and lower taxa, and many other subjects. Does anyone have any requests for hard-to-find sources they would like to use in teaching? Mostly Anglophone, and reaching from the 1770s or so to the beginning of the Great War. Answer in comments or direct in email. Biology Epistemology History Natural Classification Philosophy Science Species and systematics Species concept Systematics
Evolution Nature makes no leaps… 26 Jan 2008 Reacting to Jerry Coyne’s guest blog on The Loom, Brian Switek at Laelaps discusses, among other things, the objection to Darwin’s theories that Huxley put forward, both in personal correspondence and in print: The only objections that have occurred to me are 1st that you have loaded yourself with an… Read More
Natural Classification A quote on science 7 Jan 2011 “All science is either, A. Science of Discovery; B. Science of Review; or C. Practical Science. By “science of review” is meant the business of those who occupy themselves with arranging the results of discovery… The classification of the sciences belongs to this department”. (C.S. Peirce, An Outline Classification of the… Read More
Metaphysics What it is like to be a digital camera 3 Dec 20101 Jul 2020 I’m avoiding work and jotting down notes that might one day issue forth in a paper. The issue of what consciousness is, is a vexed problem in philosophy of mind. Partly this is because it is so ill-defined, as any coined term based on an impressionistic philosophy like Descartes’ can… Read More