Zeno's paradox

When I'm teaching an Intro course, I frequently take time to present and discuss a paradox. I frame this activity as a warm-up exercise at the beginning of class, and I make clear that it's not a time to disengage but rather is a time to enjoy how intellectually stimulating philosophy can be--it's not something that folks have to take notes on or which I grade.

In crafting a mini-lecture on Zeno's paradoxes I came across the following Youtube video on Achilles and the tortoise, which is so charming that I couldn't believe it had had only 250 views (at that time)!

Philosophical language and the gender norm

The surprising encounter with the accusation that someone who fails to articulate disagreement is a 'wuss' has heightened my sense of gender normativity in language over the last few days. (This is public radio, not Howard Stern!) I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one who sees gender bullying played through language games.

Reading essays in Paul Horwich's Truth, Meaning, Reality (2010), he writes in "A World without Isms":

Of course it was wishful thinking for me to have suggested in my title that this could spell the end of all 'isms'. For there was bound to be one for the very point of view that I'm recommending. "A bloodless quietism" is how Crispin Wright has labeled it—"the bland perspective of a variety of assertoric 'language games', each governed by its own internal standards of acceptability, each sustaining a metaphysically emasculated notion of truth, each unqualified for anything of more interest or importance." Well, Crispin, sorry for being so anemic, boring, and effeminate...

This move allows the unconscious (and unthinking) sexism to be its own insult.

I'm More Free Than You Are

Everyone thinks everyone else has less free will

"Social psychologist Emily Pronin at Princeton University in New Jersey studies the differences between how we perceive ourselves and how we perceive others. According to her research, we tend to view our own judgment as sound but the judgment of others as irrational; recognize the biases in others but not ourselves; and see ourselves as more individualistic and others as more conformist."

Yes, hard to disagree with that...but quantitative evidence is nice to have I guess. Also, the concept of free will in the study seems a little confused. But then, if people are mostly confused about free will in the same way, then it probably doesn't matter in terms of interpreting the results.

Monadic Communication

How can it be that I've never pointed out that fellow philosophy blogger Carrie Jenkins makes great music with Syracuse metaphysicians under the name The 21st Century Monads?

Take a break from your summer research program to have a listen to "The G. E. Moore Shift" and then click through to the band's page for free album downloads and to listen to the soon-to-be-classic "Don't Get Smoked at the Smoker."