Philosophy My Absent Career 1: The end of an error 6 Dec 20221 Jan 2023 So this month ends my likely last teaching contract. For the past two decades I have been sporadically teaching, first at Melbourne, then Queensland, then Sydney, Bond [the less said about that the better], UNSW and back to Melbourne. But I never got a permanent position, and age, I think,… Continue Reading
Philosophy Species Problems and Beyond 23 Nov 202223 Nov 2022 In conjunction with Frank Zachos from the Natural History Museum Vienna, and Igor Pavlinov of Lomonosov Moscow State University in Moscow (both mammalogists) I have edited this book: You can read more but I thought it was worthwhile noting the table of contents: It is a nice mix of scientists,… Continue Reading
Philosophy Aaannnddd we’re back! 23 Nov 202223 Nov 2022 Changing hosts should not cause major stress headaches, but there it is… Anyway, after a two week delay, ET is back. Continue Reading
Greek Words Account/Cause 28 Apr 202228 Apr 2022 aitia culpability, criminal responsibility, cause Aristotle sets out four things responsible for changes: “On the question “why” with respect to any process of generation or change, four answers are possible; these are the four causes. 1) The material cause (the constituent out of which something comes to be). 2) The… Continue Reading
Epistemology Operative concepts 27 Apr 202227 Apr 2022 Gave a talk “The Good Species” yesterday (26 April 2022) to the HPS crowd at UniMelb. The discussion went a way I didn’t expect: classification in the psychiatric and medical domains. I proposed a third kind of concept formation in science: what I am calling “operative concepts”: folk terms and… Continue Reading
Greek Words Being 25 Apr 202228 Apr 2022 Ousia Liddell and Scott: property; (philosophy) being, essence, reality. That which is one’s own, one’s property. Substance, as in “a man of substance”. In philosophy, ousia is taken to mean stable being, substance, or essence [but see arch?, eidos]. When Aristotle introduced the notion of an essence in the Metaphysics… Continue Reading
Greek Words Greek words used in classical philosophy 21 Feb 202225 Apr 2022 I prepared this for an undergraduate class last year. I’m putting it up under the Creative Commons license here for people to use. If you have any suggested terms to add, let me know. I’ll keep it up to date. Continue Reading
Book New edited species book 19 Oct 202119 Oct 2021 So, what have I been doing for the Covid Lockdown. Many things. This is one of them. The CRC Press link is here, but I’ll give the table of contents below. The beautiful cover art is by Scott Partridge, an artist in North Carolina. It is entitled Abyssal Zone. Table… Continue Reading
Philosophy How to do numerical taxonomy 9 Oct 20219 Oct 2021 Hint: use only original IBM punch cards Continue Reading
Philosophy Talk: The Good Species 14 Jul 202119 Jul 2021 This is the talk I will be giving at ISHPSSB on Tuesday 19th. [I was having issues with Slideshare, so just click the link to see it.] Continue Reading