Mill on philosophical errors 13 Nov 2009 A fundamental error is seldom expelled from philosophy by a single victory. It retreats slowly, defends every inch of ground, and often, after it has been driven from the open country, retains a footing in some remote fastness. The essences of individuals were an unmeaning figment arising from a misapprehension of the essences of classes, yet even Locke, when he extirpated the parent error, could not shake himself free from that which was its fruit. [Mill, A System of Logic Bk I, ch vi. sect iii] Philosophy Quotes Quotes
Epistemology Linnaeus: the founder of databases 17 Jun 200918 Sep 2017 A couple of years ago I was in Exeter, and was chatting to Staffan Müller-Wille, who is an expert in the history of biology specialising in Linnaean taxonomy. He mentioned to me that Linnaeus had invented the index card in order to keep track of the increasingly large data set… Read More
Education What is the “humanities”? 11 May 2009 It is often the case that when non-academics, or even non-humanities academics, talk about my generic field, they refer to it as “arts”, and mean by this the creative arts, like performing arts, crafts, and corporate accounting. So they justify the funding for the “arts” (or “the yartz”, as a… Read More
Epistemology On birds, and ornithologists, and mutual respect 31 Jul 20124 Oct 2017 Some time back I had dinner with Pete Richerson, a well known ornithologist and biological theorist. He told me and the rest of the table an anecdote about hooded crows. It seems that in order to capture one to band, the ornithologists must sneak in the dead of night to… Read More
Of course other forms of inquiry are no different, if you think of how long it takes a political idea to die off. BTW, the next post (philosophy as forgetting) is mangled because of an unclosed blockquote