Humor Begging that damned question 26 May 201426 May 2014 Something that bugs the hell out of me, literally, is the misuse of English. Of course, I was trained as a subeditor in the days when such things mattered even to journalists, so I am a fossilised dinosaur in this respect. I even try to use adverbs correctly. One thing… Continue Reading
Australian stuff David Armstrong dies 17 May 201417 May 2014 I received this message via the Australasian Association of Philosophy: The philosophical community will be saddened to learn that David Malet Armstrong died on the 13th of May after a long illness: two months shy of his 88th birthday. DMA or Armo, as he was affectionately known, is the most… Continue Reading
Logic and philosophy Why do physicists hate philosophy? 15 May 201416 May 2014 Lately there has been a slew of physicists making claims like this: Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. [Hawking and Mlodinow, The Grand Design 2011, p5] My concern here is that the philosophers believe they… Continue Reading
Epistemology Information is the new Aristotelianism (and Dawkins is a hylomorphist) 27 Apr 201428 Apr 2014 In seeking tales and informations [Henry VIII, Act V, scene 3] For some time now* I have had problems with the notion of information. Not, please note, with this or that piece of information, but with the notion itself, especially in the natural sciences. In this age of computers and internets,… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Accommodating Science: Unpicking the arguments 23 Feb 20144 Mar 2014 So given that it is not entirely clear what religion is, or even what science is, it would help if we could put the arguments clearly. It is hard to find clear statements of either the accommodationist or the anti-accommodationist positions, so what we have to do first is reconstruct… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Accommodating Science: What is the problem? 20 Feb 201423 Feb 2014 [As I write the first draft of my accommodationism book, I will post chapters here under the Category “Accommodationism”. Here is the latest – which comes before Undefining Religion] The religion-versus-science debate took a special turn in the West because of the existence not only of doctrinal religion but of… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Undefining religion 15 Feb 201429 Jun 2024 [This will be a series of posts based on a book I am writing – see last post] When anthropologists began to study religions in cultures other than the European context, which itself was based upon Roman jurisprudence, they encountered a difficulty. Until this time, in the mid-nineteenth century, “religion”… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Degrees of religion 8 Feb 201420 Feb 2014 Larry Moran quotes Jason Rosenhouse disputing Phil Plait: So, after all, that, let us return to Plait’s argument. He tells us that the problem is too many people perceiving evolution as a threat to their religious beliefs. Indeed, but why do they perceive it that way? Is it a failure of… Continue Reading
Book Books I am reading/reviewing 6 Feb 20148 Feb 2014 Despite marking scores of essays, after having taught a subject intensive, and preparing various papers, I get to review some books. This means reading them, familiarising myself with the technical literature, and so on. So I thought I’d do a brief summary of them for you now: The first is… Continue Reading
Accommodationism How to argue with silly thing believers 30 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 [Apologies this took a while; I’ve been rather sick] So, given all this [Why believers believe silly things, why they believe the particular silly things they do, and the developmental hypothesis of belief acquisition], how can you change a believer’s mind? It is tempting to say that you cannot, or… Continue Reading