Skip to content

A debate over definitions

Thursday, February 21, 2008

The dreadful debate over definitions.  It seems that when you get right down to it, these are the discussions that people abhor the most, far more than those concerning politics or religion.  Whereas with religion or politics, the difference can usually be distilled into a subjective evaluative judgment, the argument lacks a certain joie de [...]

Filed in philosophy, politics | Comments (4)

Subversive language and the role of philosophy

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

“I am writing a book.” This is not as creative, interesting, or impressive as it actually sounds, so in my day-to-day interactions I like to just leave it at that. “I am writing a book.” If pressed for details, I’ll reveal that it’s a Korean history book. The rights to this [...]

Filed in academics, culture, philosophy | Comments (1)

On favoring complexity

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The latest round of criticism for the postmodern thought camp, perhaps surprisingly, isn’t coming from the anthropologists and historians and sociologists–the people who probably have the most to lose if we actually take what postmodernism is saying and apply it accordingly. It’s actually coming more from the hard sciences. Alan Sokal’s Intellectual Impostures [...]

Filed in academics, philosophy | Comments (2)