On the Standard is a new poster that has written a sort of primer on progressivism and conservatism. I'm not too sure what the point of it is - you can get a more lucid, balanced perspective on wikipedia (to which it links). It's more of a vessel for the author to say that conservativism appeals to simple people, and other such enlightening generalisations.
This is why I like reading the Standard, and for the same reason, Kiwiblog. They have their moments of being very right, but it shows so often that they just do not seem to be able to understand other points of view. I find this interesting. I would not consider myself a conservative. But there are highly educated, philosophically sophisticated conservatives, and calling them simple and antithetical to reason would be beyond my conceit.
A Theory of Forgetting
Something particularly relevant to me, perhaps.
At TAR Brian Weatherston summarises a basic theory of forgetting.
But the real suffering of this theory is that it specifies no concept of what it means to know something in the first place. Forgetting is an event that occurs subsequent to knowledge, so to ascertain whether something has been forgotten we must be able to tell whether or not it is known in the first place. This is a deficiency exploited by the other counterexamples he gives.
Obviously this is a little bit of a tricky question. But it seems to me that a theory of forgetting is entirely contingent on it.
At TAR Brian Weatherston summarises a basic theory of forgetting.
S forgets that p iff at one time S knows that p, and at a later time, S does not know that p.He then lists counterexamples - for example, if S dies then S no longer knows that p, but clearly has not forgotten.
But the real suffering of this theory is that it specifies no concept of what it means to know something in the first place. Forgetting is an event that occurs subsequent to knowledge, so to ascertain whether something has been forgotten we must be able to tell whether or not it is known in the first place. This is a deficiency exploited by the other counterexamples he gives.
Obviously this is a little bit of a tricky question. But it seems to me that a theory of forgetting is entirely contingent on it.
Academic Discipline Rankings
By hotness, obviously.
I am pleased that political science and philosophy are both up there, disappointed but unsurprised about maths and economics.
This creates a new dilemma for someone like me who studies fields of disparate hotness rankings. Say I were to go into academia, should I go into economics and hope that I stand out by comparison? Or should I move into political science or philosophy and hope that the generally more attractive nature of these disciplines rubs off on me in some way?
Most perplexing. Perhaps I will just become a fireman.
Alan Greenspan laughs
off econ's low score.
I am pleased that political science and philosophy are both up there, disappointed but unsurprised about maths and economics.
This creates a new dilemma for someone like me who studies fields of disparate hotness rankings. Say I were to go into academia, should I go into economics and hope that I stand out by comparison? Or should I move into political science or philosophy and hope that the generally more attractive nature of these disciplines rubs off on me in some way?
Most perplexing. Perhaps I will just become a fireman.
Alan Greenspan laughs
off econ's low score.
In Defence of Noam
Noam Chomsky's influence as a thinker is immense, and it is unfortunate that he has come to be judged largely by his political thought. Tom's post below is a case in point, and a cursory reading of his work could support the picture of a slightly cantankerous and senile critic of US foreign policy, a mere 'good writer'. But the great man deserves more than this. Chomsky's enduring contribution to human knowledge does indeed stem from his linguistic work, so a brief dose of CHOM 101 might help set this in context.
In the first half of the 20th century, a dominant school of thought held that human behaviour was best explained in terms of an input/output machine, since the brain itself was impenetrable and irreducibly complex. Behaviourism, as this insidious movement was known, is preposterous because it postulates that our minds are blank slates and have no innate mechanisms to do anything. Apparently, all human behaviour is nothing but a process of social conditioning and environmental learning.
But cometh the hour, cometh Noam. In the mid 50s, as a young firebrand linguist working at MIT he destroyed the behaviourist programme by elucidating the human linguistic faculty. He showed that our rich patterns of speech and understanding simply cannot follow from the limited amount of language we are exposed to, and that an expanation of such a key feature of human behaviour is incoherent without invoking an innate ability of the mind. His 1959 review of BF Skinner's book Verbal Behaviour is the most concise statement of his crushing rebuttal.
Chomsky's virtuosity ignited what is now known as the cognitive revolution which continues apace, bringing together research strands from psychology, anthropology, philosophy and computer science to forge a far more complete and satisfying understanding of the human condition. The vestigal traces of behavioursim have been banished to the poststructuralists and the postmodernists, and lack mainstream currency in the cognitive sciences. In my view, this is a victory.
The humanities and the social sciences have long shyed away from a rigourous examination of the explanatory hypotheses they take for granted. A serious attempt to understand and explain our social, cultural and political worlds can only be forged once we can understand the nature of people, the atomic constituents of society. Why are we such prosocial primates? How rational are we really? These are the questions which we need to illuminate, and Noam Chomsky was the first to travel down the only path which can coherently answer them.
In the first half of the 20th century, a dominant school of thought held that human behaviour was best explained in terms of an input/output machine, since the brain itself was impenetrable and irreducibly complex. Behaviourism, as this insidious movement was known, is preposterous because it postulates that our minds are blank slates and have no innate mechanisms to do anything. Apparently, all human behaviour is nothing but a process of social conditioning and environmental learning.
But cometh the hour, cometh Noam. In the mid 50s, as a young firebrand linguist working at MIT he destroyed the behaviourist programme by elucidating the human linguistic faculty. He showed that our rich patterns of speech and understanding simply cannot follow from the limited amount of language we are exposed to, and that an expanation of such a key feature of human behaviour is incoherent without invoking an innate ability of the mind. His 1959 review of BF Skinner's book Verbal Behaviour is the most concise statement of his crushing rebuttal.
Chomsky's virtuosity ignited what is now known as the cognitive revolution which continues apace, bringing together research strands from psychology, anthropology, philosophy and computer science to forge a far more complete and satisfying understanding of the human condition. The vestigal traces of behavioursim have been banished to the poststructuralists and the postmodernists, and lack mainstream currency in the cognitive sciences. In my view, this is a victory.
The humanities and the social sciences have long shyed away from a rigourous examination of the explanatory hypotheses they take for granted. A serious attempt to understand and explain our social, cultural and political worlds can only be forged once we can understand the nature of people, the atomic constituents of society. Why are we such prosocial primates? How rational are we really? These are the questions which we need to illuminate, and Noam Chomsky was the first to travel down the only path which can coherently answer them.
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