Reminiscences of one who was there 12 Apr 2010 Early on, when I thought I would be an intellectual, a dilettante but still an intellectual, at the age of 17 or so, I read several books that I found at a second hand bookstore (my usual place of recreation). One was a little volume called Critique of Pure Tolerance, and one of the editors was Robert Paul Wolff. In part it led me to think of myself as philosophical, if not then a philosopher. Anyway, he is blogging his memoirs, and I strongly recommend anyone interested in philosophy reads them. Resumption of my Memoirs Memoir — Second Installment Memoirs Third Part Memoir Fourth Installment Memoir Fifth Installment Memoir Sixth Installment Memoir Seventh Installment Memoirs Eighth Installment Memoirs Ninth Installment History Philosophy
Epistemology Sausages, and science 6 Dec 2009 One should not see, goes the old saw, laws or sausages being made. This is also true of science, for a reason. Before something is published, scientists argue, insult each other, discuss things in casual ways and use unclear jargon and terminology that looks like, to an outsider who is… Read More
Academe My Absent Career 12: The aged aged man 6 Jan 20236 Jan 2023 Suddenly I was out of work, I could not rejoin the postdoc, and I had to move to Sydney once again, to see if I could find anything. I did do some teaching at UNSW, but that was about it. I was in dire straits. And the Straits of Dire… Read More
Education Is Brian Blessed a monkey or an ape? 22 Apr 201122 Jun 2018 One of the recurring creationist attacks on evolution is, “If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” I responded to this once before but it is time to revisit it. Why? Because Marty Robbins has attacked the British media, itself always a noble thing to do, for constantly… Read More
Sorry to disillusion you but you *are* an intellectual by any reasonable definition of the word. And that’s a good thing. You have achieved the goal you set when you were 17. You also have a motorcycle. Very impressive!
This does not disillusion me. It was only that at 17, I thought I’d be a dilettante, since my teachers had uniformly announced that I was actually rather stupid, before I was thrown out of school.
Shame Kant was not a biker. Can you imagine what his Critique Of Pure Motorcycle Maintenance would have been like?
Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great peace of mind. –in words from the definitive work on motorcycle maintenance.