Twin Brothers from Different Mothers?

Consider:  Franz Liszt

Gerald Gaus

Clearly, Jerry is a vampire, a continuation of the life-force of Liszt from long ago.  Not sure about that grad student, though.  Looks confused with his head all cocked over like that.

A Theory of Justice: The Musical

I bet that evil seductress Ayn Rand steals the show.  Though, she (born 1905) was a bit old for Nozick (born 1938), I would have thought.  That minx!

A Theory of Justice:  The Musical

Alvin Plantinga wins Rescher

Interesting.

Philosopher Alvin Plantinga Receives Prestigious Rescher Prize

That's quite an important prize.

Schmidtz

Wow.  David Schmidtz has totally blown up, gotten big, become famous, etc.  The problem is, you know what happens when you get all famous?  This.

Looks a lot like this, doesn't it?  I'm just sayin'...

Fortunately, David is a kind and benevolent ruler.   And all that stuff where Dave insists that Jerry Gaus call him "Chancellor"?  It doesn't mean anything, I'm sure.




 

Faculty photo in Romania

So, our group picture, at the Craiasa Muntilor near Brasov.

That's Virgil Storr, Dave Schmidtz, me with the hat, and Jerry Gaus in back, threatening to hold Mihai Titienar hostage for more of that great bread.
 

Warning: Contains Graphic Content

After this quite delightful little kerfuffle, Zach Wiener was kind enough to send me the original of this cartoon. Interesting Rorschach test: we learn something about YOU, from who you think is being mocked. This issue discussed at greater length here. (Hint: Zach always mocks everyone, including himself. He is not really a fan of false certitude, or ideologies. Check the crest here...)

Anyway, I got this for Christmas:

In the place of honor, right over the throne, so that men are obliged to stare it, and women will have plenty of time to look at it, too, while they are doing whatever it is that they do that takes 45 minutes in there. (Not very high quality, it's a cellphone pic, so if you want the original comic it's here...)

We are ALL Humean Beings Now

My favorite philosopher, by a wide margin, is David Hume. (Never mind the epistemology stuff, not sure what he was doing there, forget that).

Very nice article in NYT on Hume, and why he gets disrespected.

In fact, it seems to me that Ron Paul is the modern political version of David Hume. Everyone says that he's right about a lot of things, perhaps wrong about some things, but in any case they certainly can't take him seriously, because.... hard to say why, actually.

As Bertrand Russell put it: "Rousseau was mad but influential; Hume was sane but had no followers."

Why Economists are Paid a LOT more than Philosophers

David Deerson sends this link. I laughed. An excerpt, though you need to look at the whole thing. Heh.

It's funny 'cause it's true.

UPDATE: Wow! My philosopher friend Kevin Vallier thinks that this cartoon, above, is making fun of ECONOMISTS! And I have to admit he may be right! To me, this cartoon illustrates why philosophers are useless low-paid parasites, and economists are collossi, bestride the world of academics! Okay, THAT's not right. But seriously, who is this cartoon mocking? To me, it is clearly mocking the philosopher. Since economists can actually answer the ridiculous koans that philosophers think are impossibly deep and unanswerable, the economists don't get to play!

Kevin's response: I think the critique of the economist is that he [the economist] is exceedingly perverse because his model of moral decision-making ignores a whole host of important considerations that any normally functioning human being recognizes. Now, I think the normally functioning human needs a good dose of economic thinking, but I do think that the sort of instrumental, consequentialist reasoning of most economists is woefully inadequate as a complete model of moral reasoning. I *think* lots of economists believe this too, even if they often ignore it, at least stereotypically.

Wow! that is 100% different from my reading of that cartoon. The fact is that an old woman is worth only a small fraction of the Mona Lisa. And I can prove it: the society spends a LOT of money to protect the Mona Lisa, with security and climate control. The old woman has to pay for her own locks on her door, and her own HVAC.

LeBron on Compassion by the Pound

Interesting article on humane treatment of animals.

If it matters, Chez Mungowitz has gone over to cage-free eggs. Not expensive. Not sure they taste better, but for such a small price why not have more humane treatment. Angus is much closer to totally free range, because Chez Angus buys only free range chicken and beef. (Angus doesn't like seafood or pork) (Never mind; inside joke).

Of course, we also eat deer. Humanely killed deer, which means hunted by responsible expert marksmen. Happy, totally free range deer to dead deer in less than 10 seconds.

The Grand Game--Michael Clifford edition

I should be fair: Just helped host David Schmidtz for a two day visit, and he's a friend. So I have some preconceived notions here.

But I really, really enjoyed Will W's beat down of one Michael Clifford.

The fact is that Clifford's article, even after the beat down, still has lots of fecund ground for grand game playing.

I'll go first: Dr. Clifford is clearly a Foucault enthusiast. I think that means he reads Foucault while locked in his office*, and does alone that thing that Christine O'Donnell thinks that men should only do with women.

(*Clifford's office, not Foucault's)