Jamie Dreier sent along a couple of interesting links that you might enjoy checking out.

The first is a radio show, WBUR’s “On Point”. It features Michael Lynch and Simon Blackburn talking about truth.

bq. “Truth on the Radio”:http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/08/20050817_b_main.asp

The second is a review by Jim Holt (who has written some good articles for _Slate_) of Harry Frankfurt’s _On Bullshit_ and Simon Blackburn’s _Truth: A Guide_ from the latest _New Yorker_.

bq. “Truth reviewed”:http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/050822crat_atlarge

With that I have to take another leave of the blog. I’m impersonating a jetsetting young professional for the next few weeks, spending time in Prague, London, Oxford (very briefly) and Barcelona. I’m looking forward to lots of philosophising and holidaying, two of my very favourite activities. Unless I post from the road, I’ll be back here in three weeks.

Over at “The Valve”:http://www.thevalve.org/go there is what promises to be a massive symposium on a recent collection of papers called “The Literary Wittgenstein”:http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/archive/C42/. (John Holbo reviewed the book “here”:http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=2661.) It looks like it should be a fun and informative debate, with several authors of pieces showing up to defend themselves from slings and arrows of commentators.

To my knowledge, my paper “Are You a Sim”:http://brian.weatherson.org/sims.pdf was the first paper in an academic philosophy journal to cite a computer game. So you’d think that game would develop a healthy respect for philosophy. Sadly, no, though they seem to have a well developed disrespect.

Via “David Chess”:http://www.davidchess.com/words/log.20050812.html#20050815, here are the list of courses in the philosophy major for the “Sims 2: University expansion”:http://www.simplisticsims.co.uk/tutorials/classcat.html#philosophy.

bq. What is the Meaning of This?!
The Refrigerator Light: Proof vs. Faith
Old Dead Guys who Thought Stuff
Optimists and Other Idiots
Philosophy’s Place in the Neighborhood: Anywhere?
Existentialism: Depressing Yourself on Purpose
Who Controls the Pie Menu and Why?
Senior Project: Preparing For The Food Industry

And the preferred career paths for philosophy majors

# Slacker
# Culinary
# Paranormal

Those with better knowledge of my work habits, cooking skills and connection to entities without good scientific explanation (Red Sox, Aust cricket team etc) can say which I’ve ended up in.

I’m off to sunny Minneapolis for a few days, so probably little posting will be done here. The silly talk thread below seems to keep growing and growing however, so you might want to check back in for the latest stories.

“Shieva Kleinschmidt”:http://emiratio.typepad.com/blog/ pointed me to Cosmic Variance’s discussion of “silly talk about science”:http://cosmicvariance.com/2005/07/24/silly-talk-about-science/. The thread contains lots of stories fromo scientists consisting of the silliest things people have said to them about science. So, what about a thread on the silliest things people have said to you about philosophy, or silliest philosophical claims you’ve heard made?

This could be a slightly more interesting thread than the science thread. After all, it’s unlikely that the silliest claim about science a scientist will have heard will have come from another scientist. On the other hand, making silly philosophical claims is an occupational hazard of real live hard-working philosophers. (Unless, as Austin would have added, it is their occupation.) Certainly some of my metaphysical views are pretty odd – though at least I don’t deny the existence of tables chairs and beer mugs.

Here’s some news about a couple of online ethics journals that I’ve mentioned before. I haven’t been tracking it for OPP for some reason, but here’s the first three articles from the “Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy”:http://www.jesp.org/

bq. “Is Gibbard a Realist?”:http://www.jesp.org/articles/download.php?id=19, by Laura Schroeter and Francois Schroeter

bq. “Essentially Comparative Concepts”:http://www.jesp.org/articles/download.php?id=18, by Jonathan Dancy

bq. “The Good, the Bad, and the Blameworthy”:http://www.jesp.org/articles/download.php?id=17, by Neil Levy

And “Studies in the History of Ethics”:http://www.historyofethics.org/ has a “call for papers on The Ethics of War and Peace in Historical Perspective”:http://www.historyofethics.org/cfp072005.html, which is excerpted below the fold.
Continue reading →

Today’s “papers blog”:http://opp.weatherson.org/archives/004491.html contains links to two online books.

bq. Gilbert Harman and Sanjeev Kulkarni, “Reliable Reasoning: Induction and Statistical Learning Theory”:http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eharman/Papers/Book.pdf (PDF).

bq. Ralph Wedgwood, “The Nature of Normativity”:http://users.ox.ac.uk/%7Emert1230/book/contents.htm.

I wasn’t really sure where it fits onto the papers blog, but it’s also worth noting that the latest issue of the house journal of “CAPPE”:http://www.philosophy.unimelb.edu.au/cappe/publications.php, _Res Publica_, is “now available”:http://www.philosophy.unimelb.edu.au/cappe/docs/Res_Publica%2013.2%20pdf.pdf.

Via “Sappho’s Breathing”:http://www.sapphosbreathing.com/archives/000619.html I was pointed to a “Harry Potter personality test”:http://piratemonkeysinc.com/quiz.htm. It’s basically a crude Myers-Briggs with Harry Potter characters for each of the types, but nevertheless it is amusing. Here’s me.

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

Via “Sappho’s Breathing”:http://www.sapphosbreathing.com/archives/000619.html I was pointed to a “Harry Potter personality test”:http://piratemonkeysinc.com/quiz.htm. It’s basically a crude Myers-Briggs with Harry Potter characters for each of the types, but nevertheless it is amusing. Here’s me.

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.