There is a blog that does not exist

Moving on

2008-03-29T18:51:00.001-06:00

I have decided to close "There is a blog that does not exist."

My new personal blog is: Praeter Necessitatum.

Please continue reading my blog at the new site.

Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90

2008-03-18T19:40:00.003-06:00

The New York Times reports that Arthur C. Clarke, author of numerous popular science fiction novels and stories, died today at his home in Sri Lanka. The story is available here.

Next to Philip K. Dick, Clarke is my favorite science fiction writer. His ability to weave deep philosophical problems into his stories made we quite fond of him.

Muslim bioethics

2008-03-05T21:29:00.003-07:00

An interesting article has been posted on Muslim bioethcs at wired science (here). It appears that Sharia law might be outpacing the Bush administration in some aspects of biotechnology.

New UTA WiFi service!

2008-02-15T18:34:00.004-07:00

UTA, the Utah Transit Authority, tested a program beginning in 2006 that permitted commuters on select express buses WiFi access. The pilot program was so successful that they recently expanded the WiFi service to all express buses from Logan to Provo.

In fact, I'm on a UTA express bus headed for Ogden at this moment.

The "crossroads"

2008-02-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

The blues has lots of legends. Perhaps the most well-known legend occurred at a place called the "crossroads." The location of the crossroads is just outside of Clarksdale, Mississippi where the old U.S. Highway 49 meets old U.S. Highway 61.

As legend has it, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil for his ability to play the guitar. Of course his deal made him "King of the Delta Blues." Johnson, according to legend, happened to sell his soul to the devil where U.S. 49 and U.S. 61 merge (not intersect in the traditional sense).

Some have disputed the account. Naysayers have suggested the deal went down at the intersection of MS 8 and MS 1. Other naysayers have claimed that the deal took place near the Leo's Market in Rosedale (the location was immortalized by the tune "Traveling Riverside Blues" which was re-made by Cream and entitled "Crossroads").

I traveled the area in the summer of 2001 stopping at juke joints from Vicksburg to Clarksdale. It was quite an experience! Now, I'm heading back in a few weeks. I'm probably going to stay in the Riverside Hotel (where Ike Turner wrote "Rocket 88" and Bessie Smith died after her traffic accident in 1938, the Riverside was G.T. Thomas Hospital then) or the Shack Up Inn (on Clarksdale's outskirts).

The job market's got me in a nasty funk and I've gotta get back to my roots!

The importance of checking your child's homework

2008-02-08T19:37:00.000-07:00

The image has been circulating around the internet.

New Blog on gender, race, and philosophy

2008-02-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

New blog is available here on gender, race, and philosophy. Many great philosophers are on the list of authors. I hope to see some posts from them.

The "side car," malt beverages, and warm beer

2008-02-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

Before I leave the area, I'd like to publish a few posts on the state of Utah. By "state", I mean what Utah is like (and not necessarily about the confines of the artificial geographic boundary). Topics will probably include polygamy, liquor laws, and the LDS Church, i.e., Mormonism. The following post tackles liquor laws. Honestly - I've never had a problem with Utah's liquor laws. I'm not a heavy drinker, and I don't spend much time at bars. Admittedly, the laws are strange and they should be revised (but not in the way the legislature is proposing).

This is a short post on liquor laws and the proposed changes the legislature is considering (see the Trib's article here for more info; for a slightly more jaded version see the Deseret News article here).

Utah state liquor laws are strange. They are a remnant of prohibition. First, here are some of the laws: (1) only licensed establishments may serve alcoholic beverages for consumption on its premises which must be located at some defined minimum distance from schools, churches, and other institutions; (2) liquor must be dispensed by metered plumbing and is restricted to one ounce per serving (absolutely no doubles); (3) patrons cannot be served more than one drink at a time; (4) a patron must have fully consumed his drink before another one may be served; (5) establishments classified as "restaurants" cannot serve alcohol to patrons who do not order food (designated "meals"); (6) establishments classified as "private clubs" must be non-profit organizations, must charge a membership fee (minimum $4), and are prohibited from advertising to increase membership levels; (6a) members of private clubs may "sponsor" up to 7 guests and sponsors must have a "pre-existing relationship" with his/her guests.

These represent just a sample of Utah's strange liquor laws. Someone might point out that I've forgotten one really strange law. The strange law is that you can only have one drink in front of you at a time. That law was overruled recently (circa 2003). The rule has been changed. Patrons at a private club are permitted to have two drinks of "spirituous liquor" (and a beer or a glass of wine) in front of you at the same time. In a restaurant, the rule is that patrons can only have one "spiritous liquor" drink and one beer or one glass of wine in front of them at a time.

When Jon Hunstman ran for governor, one of his initiatives was to "normalize" state liquor laws. His first effort to change the liquor laws in 2005 were thwarted by legislators. Very recently, a new move is under way to change the state's liquor laws. The new move threatens the use of a "sidecar." A "sidecar" is what patrons receive in place of a double shot. The patron receives 1oz. shot in a mixed drink (of up to 1.75oz. "flavoring) and orders a "side car" (a second shot) to make the drink a double. Of course the patron has to pour it.

New legislation would do away with the use of a "side car." The shot would be increased to 1.5oz., a standard shot everywhere else.

The new proposal doesn't come without a cost. The proposal has a few questionable riders. While the "side car" requirement will be taken away, two additions will be made to the liquor laws. First, grocery stores will be prohibited from selling "alcopops" (sweet malt beverages) because these beverages target an underage population. Second, grocery stores, convenience stores, and gas stations will be prohibited from selling cold beer. The legislature's theory is that people will not want to drink warm beer.

Dani Kauerz, of the U's Daily Utah Chronicle, opines on the second half of the rider (here).
She suggests that it wouldn't stop college students from drinking alcohol. As a matter of fact, she believes it'll increase alcohol consumption. She points out that students who play "drinking games" prefer warm beer since "you can chug warm beer faster than cold beer." Hooray! The state legislature now endorses drinking games on all Utah college campuses.

Second, I'm not sure the first rider will work either. "Alcopops," as they are called, weren't the preferred drink for young people I knew in high school. In fact, many young people steer clear of malt beverages because parents can smell the sweetness of the alcohol on a young person's breath pretty distinctly. Sweet it is, but it will unlikely detract youngsters - underage folks - from drinking.

If legislators - and Gov. Hunstman - really want to be like other parts of the country, then they should abandon their antiquated views of liquor laws. They should explore another state's liquor laws and adopt them for their own.

Where were you when I needed you?

2008-02-05T06:50:00.000-07:00

I received a philosophy book catalog. As usual I skimmed it for recently published books in any of my areas of research interest.

The last two pages of the catalog show recently published works under the heading of "academic handbooks." One of them would have been a good guide to purchase a few months ago. The book is: Surviving Your Academic Job Hunt: Advice for Humanities PhDs by Kathryn Hume (available for purchase here).

With a name like "Hume," she's got to give great advice!

62nd Philosophy Carnival

2008-02-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

Meaning More hosts the 62nd Philosophy Carnival (here). Among the more interesting posts are:

Buffalo's Lake-Effect Philosophy blog on Darwall, Empathy, and the Psychology of the Second Person. The brunt of this work will be presented at this year's MidSouth Philosophy Conference.
Thoughts Arguments and Rants post on "Oughts and Context"
Fides Quaerens Intellectum's post entitled "Who gives a tonk?"

Walking in Memphis

2008-02-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

I received word moments ago that my paper was accepted for presentation at the 33rd annual MidSouth Philosophy Conference at the University of Memphis. Title and abstract below.

The MidSouth is typically well-attended and offers a variety of philosophy papers on a wide range of topics. What I like most about this conference is its breadth. I can go to a paper on Husserl at 9am and go to a paper on presentism at 11am. Some people might think the conference's diversity is a vice, but I believe it's a virtue.

I hope to see you in Memphis!

Action under a description: what the folk say

Accounts of act individuation have attempted to capture peoples' intuitions of how to distinguish between actions. Donald Davidson and G.E.M. Anscombe have argued that a multitude of action descriptions designate only one act, while Alvin Goldman has averred that each action description refers to a distinct act. Following on studies by Joshua Knobe and others about intentional action, I subject these accounts of action individuation to experimentation. The data indicate that people distinguish between actions differently depending on the valence of outcomes. Thus, the assumption that a single account of action individuation applies invariantly seems mistaken.

An experimental reading group

2008-01-31T21:07:00.000-07:00

Ethics Etc will host a reading group on Anthony Appiah's new book Experiments in Ethics. The reading group is set to begin in early March and the discussion will take place every other week. Each week one person from the group will give a brief summary of the chapter and provide some points for discussion.

I purchased Appiah's book at the APA in Baltimore, gobbled it up before his Presidential address, and continue to read from it on a regular. I highly suggest Appiah's book to anyone interested in the role of experimental philosophy in ethics.

NOTE: The New York Times Book Review published a review by Paul Bloom (Psychology, Yale) of Appiah's book (here). In it, Bloom suggests that philosophers should be worried about experimental work because it shows that science will eventually replace philosophy. What ought we worry about? As Appiah notes in his book, almost all of the major figures in the history of philosophy have had an experimental side, including Hume and Kant. We ought not be isolated from the rest of the academic community; to be so isolated - as we seem to be - from the rest of the academic community spells more trouble for philosophy than its incorporating scientific methods in its more experimental work.

61st Philosophy Carnival

2008-01-20T23:09:00.000-07:00

Inconsistent Thoughts hosts the 61st Philosophy Carnival (here).

One particular contribution deserves to be noted for its discussion of action theory. Roman Altshuler has a post arguing that an agent can act for more than one reason to perform some particular act and shows why critics who argue that the agent acted for only one reason are incorrect.

Also, Thom Brook's widely-read and well-received post regarding publishing advice for graduate students appears in this edition of Philosophy Carnival.

Round up: dead philosophers, people and the value of philosophy, etc.

2008-01-09T07:42:00.000-07:00

I've always said the best career move a philosopher can make is to drop dead, the younger the better. Now, there's a philosophy carnival on "dead philosophers" (here).

Brian Leiter has an interesting thread brewing on the state of the philosophy profession. In the thread, he asks whether the profession is better off than it was in 1997. (here)

Have you ever wondered what ordinary people say about the value of philosophy? Several people have commented on the value of philosophy in response to an article that appeared in The Herald (here). The comments are interesting (and some are even - dare I say - insightful)! HT: Religion, Philosophy and Ethics course.

I've got a couple of posts in the works, so there might be a flurry of them appearing later today.

Top 10 of 2007

2007-12-31T22:42:00.000-07:00

I picked up this idea from my buddy, Matt "Gump" Garrison. We've been friends since we were in college together. We reunited in San Francisco at the APA-Pacific in March 2007. I hadn't seen Gump in about 5 years. Perhaps I'm not in the best position to write this list but maybe it'll prompt others to write their own lists.

10. (partial roll-over from 2006); the APA-Eastern fire. Those who lived it cannot forget the largely disorganized mass of people leaving the Marriott hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. at 400am. The frigid cold, damp weather was something to forget.

9. Jean Baudrillard, a significant figure especially among those who consider themselves postmodernists or interested in continental philosophy, dies at 77.

8. A Philosophy Job Market Blog. Because job candidates aren't frustrated enough, they now have an electronic outlet for their thoughts. (here)

7. Philosophy Job Wiki. This is a partial roll-over from 2006, but this year's wiki is far more sophisticated using words like "ditto" to indicate more than one interview taking place either by phone, at the APA, or on campus.

6. Honderich/McGinn battle royal. OK. Here's how it works out. Ted Honderich writes a book about consciousness and philosophy of mind. Colin McGinn writes an "honest" review of Honderich's book for The Philosophical Review. Then, all hell breaks loose! Leiter has reported here that Honderich wants compensation from PR for having published McGinn's scathing review (Check out The Guardian's story here).

5. Fritz Allhoff (Western Michigan) started Philosophy Updates. Philosophy Updates is a listserv for professors and students to be alerted to news. It's a helpful addition to a short bank of listservs for philosophical interests. Also, the listserv has a clearly defined aim, which some of the other listservs do not.

4. The 2nd Annual Online Philosophy Conference was a huge success in May (here), and we look forward to the 3rd annual conference this year. Thanks to the efforts of Thomas Nadelhoffer and Eddy Nahmias!

3. William & Mary's Philosophy department was put into partial or quasi-receivership this year because of the department's mistreatment of junior faculty members (story here).

2. Richard Rorty died June 8, 2007. Perhaps one of the most significant American philosophers of the 20th/21st century.

1. Experimental philosophy continues to ride a wave of popularity among philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists. By all indications the empirical investigation of ordinary intuitions by philosophers will continue to be popular for at least the next few years.

To do

2007-12-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

I returned from Baltimore yesterday evening to find several emails awaiting my response (129 to be exact). I've gotten through them and responded to them, but I've got lots to do this week before school begins again.

Here's a sample:

~~1. read Frank Hindriks "Intentional action and the praise-blame asymmetry" (available online through Wiley-Blackwell early online articles at The Philosophical Quarterly.~~

~~2. finish framework of paper on "Persisting actions."~~

~~3. finish syllabi for spring semester classes.~~

7 Random things Meme

2007-12-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

Brandon was tagged and published his seven random things. He doesn't tag people, but he invites people to engage in the meme. So, I'll take the baton.

The rules are:

Link to the person who tagged you.
Share 7 random or weird things about yourself.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
Let the person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

(1) I have a fog horn in my desk drawer, and I'm not afraid to use it!

(2) I own 6 copies of Descartes's Meditations; 4 in English, 1 in French, and 1 in Latin.

(3) My favorite Warner Brothers cartoon character is Tweety, and I have a tatoo to prove it.

(4) 8 windows are open on my Macbook's desktop. 4 of which have something to do with my research and teaching. 1 is my syllabus for Philosophy of Eastern Religion I'll be teaching in the spring, 1 is my dissertation (hasn't been closed in about 3 months), 1 is my website for Philosophy of Eastern Religion class, and 1 is a work-in-progress "Persisting Actions." Oh, yeah: two other windows are notes for further revised portions of my dissertation.

(5) I actually enjoy waiting in security lines at the airport. (Is this random or weird?)

(6) I love my job.

(7) Three books I'd like to read again after I've finished my dissertation, mostly for research purposes: (a) Plato's Parmenides, (b) Lotze's Logic, and (c) Ted Sider's Four-dimensionalism.

You're it: Bob, Leah, Relz, Scott, and Shelley. Uh, I can't think of 2 more. Anyone else should jump in if they're interested.

Does accuracy count?

2007-12-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

Mitt Romney's made a few inaccurate comments. (N.Y. Times story here.)

When Mitt says "my father marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.," he means "my father was alive at the same time Martin Luther King, Jr. was."

When Mitt says "I've been a hunter all my life," he means "I've known hunters all my life."

When Mitt says, "I won't raise taxes," he means, "the rich won't have to pay taxes when I'm in office."

When Mitt says, "we share a common creed of moral convictions," he means "the LDS Church is right about issues of morality and America reflects that fact."

I just want to make clear what Mitt says if you who don't understand Mitt-speak or if you choose to ignore Mitt-speak.

Thomson's Acts and Other Events

2007-12-19T22:22:00.001-07:00

I've been re-reading Judith Jarvis Thomson's Acts and Other Events because I'm currently revising a paper on the problem of temporal order relations for the unifier and multiplier accounts of action individuation. For some reason, I decided to read some reviews of Thomson's book. I was shocked by what I found.

One reviewer's comments were outrageous. The reviewer writes:

"The book is idiosyncratic to the point of perversity."

"[The book] manages to be at one and the same time technically pedantic and philosophically vague."

Anyone who has read Thomson's book would find it to be a monumental work for action theorists and metaphysicians with interest in the philosophy of action or mind.

The reviewer may have been distracted by Thomson's notation, but that's a problem for the reviewer not for the book. Other than that I cannot even begin to speculate why the reviewer would have been so harsh in her assessment of Thomson's work.

Perhaps Thomson's most important contribution is her temporal order relations argument against the prevailing accounts of action individuation that appears in chapter 4. She identifies all of the major assumptions and implications of the problem in meticulous detail.

The problem is very basic but the implications are great - all previous accounts of action individuation are problematic. Imagine a situation where Jones shoots the czar at noon on Tuesday, but the czar doesn't die until 500pm on Friday. Can we say truly that "Jones kills the czar" before Friday? On at least one account of action individuation Jones does kill the czar before Friday because Jones's shooting the czar just is killing the czar. That means Jones killed the czar at a time before he actually died. How can Jones kill somebody without their dying? Something's wrong with this account.

On another account, Jones's killing the czar is distinct from Jones's shooting the czar. But, if Jones dies before the czar does, then Jones continues to act after he's dead. The implication is that both accounts of action individuation are strikingly odd.

The future academic job market: some good news?

2007-12-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

My routine tromp around the internet this morning found this story on a cnet.com blog by Matt Asay. Although the story is not focused only on academic jobs, the story includes some fascinating statistics about the future of academic jobs.

The story cites the top-10 jobs the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected the U.S. economy will add in the next 10 years. Nurses, salespersons, and customer service representatives fill out the top 3. What surprised me was #8. #8 is college/post-graduate teachers.

Asay's story cites a CIO.com opinion (here) that the high turnover of college/post-graduate teachers is "troubling." The projected high turnover of college/post-graduate teachers puts all segments "at risk," according to the CIO opinion.

I'd like to think that the bureau's data show that the future academic job market is bright. But that implication outstrips the data. The data merely show that there will be a need to fill vacated positions. Since colleges and universities might fill the positions by hiring adjunct instructors, the next generation of college/post-graduate teachers could be short-changed.

CIO.com's spotting the "troubling" future of the academy is right on two counts. First, it's probably correct that we don't have enough bodies to fill the soon-to-be-vacated positions, and - second - it's correct to think that how the institutions of higher education will fill these vacated spots with adjunct instructors is equally - if not more - "troubling."

59th Philosophy Carnival

2007-12-17T09:44:00.001-07:00

Despite heavy snow in Buffalo, "Lake-effect" Philosophy blog hosts the 59th Philosophy Carnival (here). Highlights will be discussed in this post after I've successfully submitted all my grades.

New Philosophy Lecture Series

2007-12-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

SUNY Fredonia has a new lecture series entitled: the Young Philosophers Lecture Series and Podcast (here). SUNY Fredonia invites young philosophers (defined as people who have received the Ph.D. in the last 6 years) to campus for two talks: the research talk and introductory talk. The research talk is a professional talk, and the introductory talk is aimed at the community in general. The first in the series takes place February 28/29, 2008.

Cleaning house

2007-12-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

The blog needs a serious overhaul. Many of the links are inactive, and many more links need to be added. Also, I'm thinking of adding a page element much like what appears on Mormon Metaphysics. His left hand column contains brief descriptions of recent posts at blogs he reads or hears of. If any one has suggestions for how to update my blog, comment on this post.

Besides my blog site, I'm working on my faculty.weber.edu website. The website was a disaster a few months ago. Now I feel it's coming up to speed. I list syllabi, teaching statement, research trajcetory statement, and current classes. I'm working on a current papers page, which includes my job talk (on "persisting actions"). Perhaps a links page is a good addition too.

What's happening now?

2007-12-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

I finished the semester in my usual uneventful (and unstressful) way; the key is my grading schema for my lower division classes. My grading schema is set up such that I know with high probability what my students' grades will be about two-to-three weeks prior to the end of the semester. I statistically rule out what each student couldn't possibly earn (both on the high and low side).

In other news, the holidays are right around the corner, and I'm not ready at all. My usual last minute shopping spree will have to wait a little while longer because I've got to prepare for interviews at the APA and finish a draft of a paper I've been working on.

Having completed all my application letters in October and November, December was dedicated to writing philosophy papers, drafting arguments, etc. It was so much more fun!!! I forgot how much I enjoyed this stuff!

"Weirdest" Psychology Study - vote now!

2007-12-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

PsyBlog has initiated discussion of the weirdest psychology study (here). Vote now for your favorite.

I want to know what kind of desperate graduate student had to be employed to run the periscope in the urination study. That seems like a really creepy affair!

Kenny on the beginning of individual human life

2007-12-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

In "The Beginning of Individual Human Life," presented at the 2006 meeting of the A.C.P.A. and published as a part of the proceedings of the conference (which I received a few days ago), Sir Anthony Kenny argues that the individual human being exists fourteen days after conception.

Typically, it has been argued that individual human life begins at conception, birth, or sometime between conception and birth. Kenny discusses Aquinas's account, a broadly Thomist position, and his own position. His position is a mixture of Aquinas's account and the Thomist position.

Aquinas's account calls for an uninterrupted development linking the moment of conception with adult life. It's a theory of three successive entities. The theory of three successive entities at various stages of pregnancy are: the embryo, which lives a plant life with a vegetative soul, the animal soul, which replaces the vegetative soul when it disappears, and - finally - the rational soul, which is infused by God at an advanced stage of development.

Kenny calls into question the uninterrupted development of an individual from embryo to adult human. An embryo may turn into something that's not human, a single human, or twins. Since "each of the gametes might, in different circumstances, have fused to form a single conceptus, and the conceptus might, in different circumstances, have turned into more or less than the single individual that it did in fact turn into," (36) there is not an uninterrupted history of an individual.

He stresses the importance of the distinction between specific and individual identity. The distinction correlates roughly with the distinction commonly referred to as qualitative and numerical identity. Identical twins, Barbara and Beatrice, are qualitatively the same in every specific respect, but they are not a single individual.

Ultimately, Kenny uses the distinction to show that individual human life begins approximately fourteen days after the moment of conception. Fourteen days after the moment of conception a zygote may split into two entities (identical twins). The potential split should be as highly regarded as the moment two different gametes become one zygote. The Catholic position places great importance on potentiality. So, the potentiality of twinning gives us reason to doubt that the earlier embryo is an individual human being.

Kenny's argument seems to depend on a view of how to individuate between the stages of human life, i.e., embryo, fetus, child, and adult. If they're all the same thing, then Aquinas's position is correct. The embryo is as much an individual human being as the adult. If any two of the stages are distinct, then we may say that an earlier stage is not an individual human being.

To my mind, what's important about Kenny's argument is its emphasis on individuation. People's views on abortion may arise from their views of individuation. Advocates of one side in the debate may see little or - perhaps - no distinction between any two developmental stages. Thus, it's morally impermissible to abort a fetus or embryo or whatever. Others may distinguish between two stages. They would argue that it is morally permissible to abort a fetus or embryo or whatever. (Note: I'm not taking into consideration the notion of a woman's choice, which is equally important. I'm merely talking about the individuation of the stages of development.) Consequently, people's views on individual human life may depend on whether they see harming an earlier stage of development as equivalent or as unequal with a later stage of development.

Prichard's work on acting, willing, and desiring

2007-12-10T15:23:00.001-07:00

Steve Bayne has posted part 11 of H.A. Prichard's Moral Obligation: Essays and Lectures (1949). It's Prichard's essay "Acting, Willing, Desiring" (available here). Since I've only skimmed it in the past, I want to give it a thorough reading now. Comments may be forthcoming.

Nietzsche blog

2007-12-10T07:35:00.000-07:00

Brian Leiter has a blog on Nietzsche (here), called - simply - "Brian Leiter's Nietzsche Blog." The blog is not as active as his Leiter Reports, but - to my mind - it is a valuable resource for information on Nietzsche.

Two posts (here and here) are particularly noteworthy. The first post gives an overview of how to engage in reading Nietzsche if you're a beginner. Leiter suggests that the Nietzsche novice start by reading Beyond Good and Evil; I couldn't agree more. BGE is one of Nietzsche's more accessible works.

The second post is a detailed discussion of where the action is in Nietzsche studies. The discussion explains what's worth doing if you're doing research in Nietzsche studies.

On a teaching note: I suggested that the members of my existentialism class consult Leiter's Nietzsche Blog before they began their research papers. Most of them did, and they seemed to have found much of the material there very accessible.

I've added a link to Leiter's blog.

The New New Philosophy in the New York Times Magazine

2007-12-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

A brief article by Kwame Anthony Appiah on experimental philosophy was published in today's New York Times Magazine (here).

Update (12/9; 325pm): MindHacks has posted highlighting the NY Times Magazine article and the experimental work of Eric Schwitzgebel (here).

Update (12/10; 835pm): Gonepublic: Philosophy, Politics, and Public Life has a post "On Armchairs and MRIs" in response to the NY Times Magazine article by Appiah (here).

Are podcasts altering the classroom?

2007-12-06T08:00:00.001-07:00

(I've had the content of this post rattling around in me for quite a while. Today's L.A. Times article [available here], cited by Brian Leiter, spurred me on to spit it out.)

If you've not heard of a podcast, let me explain what it is: a podcast is a type of audio or visual media one can download to an mp3 player or iPod for a fee or free (e.g., through iTunes). Students can download their favorite music for free (if they're not too concerned about sometimes infringing copyright laws) or for a minimal fee if they're using music clearinghouses like iTunes.

More than music is available for the iPod or mp3 player. Books - whether classics or new releases, fiction or non-fiction - and university lectures have become available for download. Students and non-students alike can download an entire semester's worth of an instructor's lectures in a matter of minutes.

The L.A. Times article reports that non-students are eating up the university lectures. They're thrilled to have the opportunity to listen to the lectures whether they're at home, in the car, or on the treadmill. They can learn what they may have missed when they were undergraduates.

Some people - so the L.A. Times reports - have sent the universities money in compensation for being able to listen to the lectures. The general public has an interest learning about the death of God, the multiple dimensions of string theory, or advancements in biomedical engineering.

Although podcasts may be enlightening for the general public, what might they be doing for university students? Podcasts might not be an asset for universities or the students they serve. I think two problems are hard to ignore. (1) Students may think they will not have to attend class regularly and (2) the podcast learning experience might alter higher education too much.

If podcasts are available on the internet, then students can download them anytime. If they can download the podcasts anytime, then they will download them and listen to them outside the classroom.

The article points to some interesting facts about class attendance. Only 25% of enrolled students cut class. If only 25% of enrolled students cut class when the lectures are available using podcasts, then that's an even better attendance record than what you would expect without the availability of podcasts. Somehow I don't trust the article's empirical evidence. (Also, Dreyfus is quoted in the article as saying "25% of enrolled students cut class" but his picture's caption reported that he said "half the students cut class." I think the latter is more accurate than the former.)

Podcasts cannot replace learning in-the-classroom. Students who think so might not be paying attention to what's going on in class. A good (or reasonably good) class typically generates discussion between the instructor and students and between students. When students participate in the dialog, they typically gain better command of the material. Podcasts don't allow for active participation in class. Listening intently is still learning passively. So, students who relish listening to podcasts at home or at the gym aren't actively engaged in dialog to gain better command of the material.

Podcasts should supplement the classroom experience for students (here's a NY Times article pointing out what I mean here). They will permit the student to revisit a part of the class they may have had difficulty understanding when they first heard it in the lecture hall. Podcasts should also be used by the instructor to revisit parts of his/her lecture s/he may have had difficulty clarifying concepts for the student.

Second, podcasts may alter higher education. I doubt such will be the case, but you can imagine some savvy businessperson opening a college or university run using nothing but podcasts to educate its students. Perhaps this is a bit speculative but it is possible - in theory.

Ontology of collections - I

2007-12-05T18:37:00.000-07:00

1 of 3 in series on the ontology of collections. Consider two different collections: a museum collection and my office collection. Collections are not restricted to museums or to offices. A sampling of collections will show what I mean here, and I think that "collections" extend much further than we suppose at first.

We can point to typical collections. These are collections ordinary people keep for various reasons, e.g., sentimental objects, objects of admiration, etc. For example, males typically collect baseball cards. Females typically collect dolls. Some people collect unpaid parking tickets while others collect books, pens, autographs, email, letters, cards, or golf balls. Collections seem to come in all shapes and sizes.

The size and shape of collections differ dramatically.

A museum houses collections of artifacts, such as dinosaur bones, monumental documents, or art works. Museums contain important artifacts because people will pay money to go see them. The items are so precious that some people have even stolen items from a museum. A museum's artifacts are usually arranged by a curator to be pleasing for the viewer.

When I look around my office (which is where I happen to be right now), I see books, keys, pens, computer equipment, lights, a calendar, and chairs - to name a few items. We might say that these items are a part of my "office collection."

What distinguishes my "office collection" from a "museum collection?"

The business world and philosophy

2007-12-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I read this when discussions of it began to appear on numerous philosophy blogs. I had a lot to say about the discussions of the article until Richard of Philosophy etc posted his own comment here; he said much of what I wanted to say.

As Richard points out, the discussions of the Guardian article rave how studying philosophy is good for one's employment prospects. But that claim outstrips the collected data. The only fact we can glean from the data is that philosophy graduates are doing better than they were a few years ago. Doing better is not a good indicator for one's employment prospects overall.

Richard goes on to claim that it would be dishonest for undergraduate advisors and philosophy instructors to say to the prospective philosophy major that "philosophy will help you get a job." But based on the data set I don't think we can say that it would be dishonest for advisors or instructors to say such a thing.

What we need is data that show business leaders, e.g., CEOs, presidents, vice-presidents, etc., attitudes toward philosophy graduates versus their attitudes toward business graduates (or the like). In particular, we'd like to know who they would choose if both a philosophy graduate and a business graduate were going up for a job in their company. The data would help us get a grip on the potential success of philosophy graduates on the open job market.

Ultimately, I think Richard is right to say that prospective philosophy majors should undertake their studies because they have an intrinsic interest in the subject. I would say that to anyone who is considering a major in business, biology, pre-med, etc. Honestly, I think that if you're in college to make a buck, then you're in college for the wrong reason and you should re-think your objective. Going to college is not going to make you a quick buck because you're in college and you cannot make as much money in college as you can out of college.

We should seek substantive data supporting the conclusion that philosophy graduates stand a good chance of succeeding in the business world after college. If it's not there, it's not there. We will have to confirm that in a more scientific study.

New Philosophy Carnival

2007-12-03T22:35:00.000-07:00

It's about time I start touting the philosophers' carnival again, the 58th in the series. It's available at "Philosophy Sucks!" here.

Of the entries, Marco's post on truthmaking is pretty cool (here) and Tanasije's exploration of phenomenal/conscious experience has some interesting things to say about the way we talk about "phenomenal experience" (here).

Maybe I'll have something to contribute to the carnival next time. That means I'll have to do some real thinking and not just revising my dissertation or talking about my dissertation. COOL!

Goldman on the ontology of events

2007-12-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

Alvin Goldman has a nice piece forthcoming in The Monist, and a copy of it is available on his webpage here. In the piece he revisits arguments for positions in the action individuation debate. He does so with an eye toward widening the methodological role of cognitive science in metaphysics.

Goldman argues that the way that we individuate events depends on the way we mentally represent these events, either in the spatio-temporal system or in the kind-based system. Those who represent events in the kind-based system tend to individuate events by kind-term or property, and those who represent events in the spatio-temporal system tend not to distinguish between kinds.

He cites several examples in the developmental psychology literature to support his view that the mind has the ability to represent events in two ways. (Much of it is very interesting!)

How does this play out for act individuation? On the multiplier's account, if two actions, a and b, have distinct properties where each is a token of two different action-types, say A and B, then a is not identical to b even if a and b are performed by the same agent at the same time - i.e., spatio-temporally overlapping actions of the same agent. Action a and b are distinct acts because they exemplify different properties/kinds. This view corresponds with the kind-based system.

On the unifier's account, action a and b are the same when and only when both a and b are performed by the same agent at the same time. So, e.g., Smith's pulling the trigger is the same as Smith's firing the gun because the same agent performs the two actions at the same time. This view corresponds well with the spatio-temporal system.

I think that Goldman's argument jibes pretty well with the data I collected on action individuation; one might even be prone to say that his argument serves as an explanation of the data. Perhaps if the mind has two ways of representing events, kind-based and spatio-temporally based, then one or the other might have precendence when a person responds to the vignettes. In the poison case, people may give greater weight to spatio-temporal considerations than kind considerations. In the antibiotic case, people may give greater weight to kind-based considerations.

Where has the time gone?

2007-12-02T21:24:00.001-07:00

Teaching and applying for jobs consumed most of my time in late October and November. Blogging - to say the least - was the farthest thing from my mind. The application whirlwind is over; the waiting game has begun. So, I have some time to spare (perhaps I've got too much time to spare).

Those readers who are unaware of the philosophy job market can get an understanding of it here. Admittedly, the discussion is somewhat jaded. But we're on the market and job seekers think they've got the world stacked against them.

If the waiting game wasn't bad enough not knowing whether you will have an APA interview (or if you're extremely lucky an on-campus interview), a Philosophy Job Wiki has been created here to make job seekers even more anxious. NOTE: The wiki appears to be under attack! The page has been deleted several times the past few days. As of 950pm 12/2/07, the philosophy job wiki is down - the horror!

debut at x-philosophy blog

2007-11-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Joshua Knobe, my recent x-phil paper has been posted to the experimental philosophy blog. You can view the post here and read the paper using the link in that blog post.

(He's created a hyperlink to my faculty.weber.edu webpage, but I have only updated the existentialism class page recently. I'll have to update it soon b/c there are a lot of typos and missing information. Ugh! I should really update my webpage on a regular basis.)

The revolution will be televised... (or at least appear on Youtube)

2007-10-12T13:19:00.000-06:00

Here's an illuminating video by Jesse Prinz (UNC) on the "Third" revolution of philosophy.

Here's something else that's not so illuminating. WTF?!?

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week

2007-10-10T19:12:00.001-06:00

I first heard about Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week on XM radio this morning. (Huenemanniac and Brian Leiter have mentioned it on their blogs.)

From what I can gather (in between the rantings and ideological dribble), student groups will dedicate the week of October 22 to getting the word out about the "truth" of the War on Terror. The "truth" they will be preaching is that all Muslims are a danger to Americans. They believe that Muslims are dangerous not because W. started the war in Iraq but because they are evil and immoral people.

The event is ideologically driven, and promotional material associated with the event is completely incoherent in many places.

In listening to the radio show, the hosts, as well as a prominent former United States senator, called for the destruction of Islam and the murder of all Muslims. They said that the first step in the process would be to detain every Muslim in this country.

Hmmm... uhhh... what is it that we hear about destiny and repeating history???

Cafe Ville Bella

2007-09-08T10:35:00.001-06:00

A charming little coffee shop opened across the street from Weber State (where I work) in March. I didn't notice the shop until I returned to Ogden in August. It's become my new home away from home. (I work better at a coffee shop, for some reason.)

The coffee shop, more formally known as Cafe Ville Bella, has a large selection of coffee or non-coffee products, including delicious soup and sandwiches and "de-coffeed" frappuccinos (for those of you who don't like coffee).

The cafe offers Wi-fi, and it is open late (until midnight Mon through Sat and until 8pm on Sun).

If you're in Ogden, I urge you to drop by, have a coffee, a sandwich, or whatever you may fancy!

Recent work on OBEs and the implications for NDEs

2007-08-24T17:19:00.001-06:00

Several blogs have commented on a flurry of news stories about experimental research regarding out-of-body experiences published in the recent issue of the journal Science (see here and here for blog discussions; for a cool video visit Neurophilosopher here). Apparently, scientists can create an out-of-body experience. I believe the research has serious implications for near-death experiences, and philosophers views on personal identity and immortality.

Since Richard Moody published Life to Life in 1975, many philosophers and theologians have used his account of people's near-death experiences as proof for an afterlife, or immortality. Some people have gone so far as to say that his accounts provide scientific proof of immortality. The new data seem to show that Moody's accounts are just that, accounts of personal experience with no metaphysical implications at all.

(What I find pretty cool is that when researchers took subjects from one spot in the room and told them to return to where they were standing, the subjects moved to the place where they believed they had the experience, the location of the out of body moment.)

The problem of identity (on the cheap!)

2007-08-23T10:00:00.000-06:00

Philosophy Now published an article on the problem of personal identity (here).

The author mentions Parfit's theory. He does so in an odd light. The author believes that Parfit is a spiritualist. He also says, "Parfit’s vision of the present state of mankind is of beings walking in separate glass tunnels, ie seeing themselves as atomistic individuals." I'm not sure what to make of the statement or the author's intent to cast Parfit in an eastern light.

Regardless of the author's bastardization of Parfit, he has some interesting comments at the end of his piece. He asks us to consider whether the "self," the what we are, is merely a social convention. The "self," what we refer to when we say "I," "me," "we," or "us," is the same thing as the government's assigning speed limits to certain roads. The words we use to refer to our "selves" is just an arbitrary label.

The idea seems almost too wild to take seriously. But is there a reasonable argument for the claim? The argument will conflate a lot of issues about indexicals, reference, and identity, but it seems one can work.

The referent of "I" or "me" is the person speaking. Two different people can use the word "I" or "me" and refer to him/herself. Any word that can refer to two different things indiscriminately are mere labels. So, "I" or "me" are labels. Labels tell us nothing deeply interesting about objects or events. Thus, "I" or "me" tell us nothing deeply interesting about people.

What's an objection to this "argument?" If we want to know something about what a person is, then we shouldn't be concerned with the labels we use. We should want an explanation or - better - an argument for what a person is. A person seems to be something more than merely a label we place on him/her. For example, they exist, their cognizant of their environment, etc. It seems to follow that there is something deeply interesting about people.

Early Hominids Co-existed

2007-08-21T09:25:00.000-06:00

This story has been around a while, but I thought I'd report it here if people weren't aware of it. Also, I'm pretty impressed that geologists at the University of Utah had a hand in the discovery.

My worry about the find is that creation scientists and advocates of intelligent design will use the discovery against evolutionary theory. I imagine that they'll argue since evolution isn't linear, it follows that evolutionary theory is just a theory, i.e., false.

Clearly, the argument is a non sequitur. But one can imagine that they would argue something similar to this.

51st Philosophy Carnival

2007-08-20T18:03:00.000-06:00

Carnival is here...

There is an addiction that doesn't exist

2007-08-20T09:41:00.000-06:00

I'm pretty sure this is wrong, wrong, wrong. The person hasn't spent much time around me. Clearly, my internet usage gets in the way of completing my dissertation, etc.

Umnh, I should stop writing now.

On "Objections to Socialized Medicine", Part II

2007-08-19T12:17:00.000-06:00

The second part of Mr. Day's "morality" argument deals with positive and negative rights. First, he gets the distinction wrong, and, second, he endorses negative rights over positive rights, even though he claims negative rights are a "perverted philosophy." The inconsistency yields his argument impotent.

He addresses positive and negative rights in response to the question: "does everyone have a right to health care?" Before I critique Mr. Day's argument, let me give a brief definition of a positive and a negative right. A positive right is one in which an agent (or a community of agents) has the ability to control his/her own destiny. The Constitution mentions a number of positive rights, e.g., freedom of the press, freedom of speech, etc. A negative right is one in which the agent is entitled to non-interference. For example, I have a right not to be assaulted as I walk down Washington Blvd. (For a terrific overview of "rights," see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry here.)

Mr. Day begins his argument with the following: "All through our history, rights were understood as actions or activities that the individual could not lawfully be prevented from doing." This is a negative right because a person cannot prevent me from going to the grocery store, from expressing an opinion, etc. Mr. Day thinks that positive rights, "freedom of speech," follow necessarily from an expression of the negative right. Positive rights don't necessarily follow from negative rights. On the contrary, negative rights can only tell us that we cannot prevent others from performing some action. Positive rights tell us that we can perform some action. So, I don't see how these are logically connected in the way that Mr. Day has argued.

His argument becomes more confused. He writes that negative rights "commit all others to provide something for them." I'm not sure how to cash this out. Negative rights do not guarantee that anybody will do anything for anybody else. Negative rights merely prevent people from impeding my ability to do what I want to do. So, negative rights shouldn't be characterized in the way Mr. Day has suggested.

My favorite part of his argument is the following:

I categorically reject these ridiculous negative rights and find no moral, legal or philosophical justification for them. Economic chaos would ensue if they were instituted. Yes, everyone has the positive right to acquire food, shelter, clothing, health care, etc. Thus, there are to be no barriers beyond the individual's own resources to restrict access.

At the beginning of the entry he rejects negative rights. He rejects negative rights because economic chaos would be the result. It doesn't follow that the economy would be adversely affected if negative rights were instated. Mr. Day's is missing a premise in his argument. I fail to see a reasonable premise to add. So, it's best to reject his argument. Moreover, his argument is inconsistent. The ultimate conclusion, i.e., following: "Thus, there are...", expresses a negative right, which is something he "categorically rejects."

I better say something positive about Mr. Day before I close because it's not good to leave a person looking like they've just given an inconsistent argument. Mr. Day's article raises an important issue about the the nature of universal health care coverage. What is it exactly? How do we go about funding it? Should everyone benefit from it? I'm not sure how to respond to these questions, but I imagine that universal health care coverage will provide everyone with the health care they need. Doctors, private insurers, government officials, and the general public will have to sit down and discuss the important issues that Mr. Day has attempted to raise in his brief commentary.

On "Objections to Socialized Medicine"

2007-08-18T21:40:00.000-06:00

The Standard Examiner, Ogden's newspaper, published a guest commentary by J. Paul Day in today's newspaper on socialized medicine (available here). He argues that instituting socialized medicine is unjustified because the Constitution doesn't permit it, socialized medicine ought to be morally forbidden, and governmental oversight of health insurers doesn't make sense from an economic standpoint.

In my response, I don't want to argue for socialized medicine; my aim is merely to poke a few holes in one of Mr. Day's argument. My primary interest is in his argument that socialized medicine ought to be morally forbidden. Tomorrow, I'll post a follow-up that hopes to show Mr. Day has failed to understand the distinction between positive and negative rights, and his argument presumes something very specific about the nature of socialized medicine.

Mr. Day's argument is a basic one. Let me reconstruct it in a simple, easy-to-understand, form:

1) Under universal health care coverage, an individual receives the benefits of health insurance.

2) Universal coverage is a government-sponsored program.

3) Government-sponsored programs are subsidized by the taxpayers of the state (country, as the case may be).

4) So, universal coverage is subsidized by the taxpayers. (from 1-3)

5) In Mr. Day's words, "It is immoral for the state to take the product of one's labor [the taxpayers] and distribute it to someone who didn't earn it."

6) Therefore, universal coverage ought to be morally forbidden. (from 4-6)

(Perhaps someone might think that I'm being a little uncharitable because I've omitted some of Mr. Day's points. The points he raises are redundant. I'm merely portraying his overall "morality" argument.)

Clearly the premises worthy of further exploration are (1) and (5). In premise 1, Mr. Day makes an assumption about who will receive health care coverage. He presumes that only those not paying into the system will receive the health care benefits. His redundant comments make this clear, e.g., he writes "The money is coerced from people who earned it "by the sweat of their brows" and given to people who didn't." It's universal coverage for a reason. People who pay into the system, like Mr. Day, will receive the same benefits that anyone would receive. So, when he or I find ourselves in need of health care benefits, we will be able to reap the rewards of the same system.

The system cannot prevent people from milking the system. I grant that! Some anarchists, e.g., don't pay taxes to the government because they don't feel they should have to subsidize government programs for the general public and for the underprivileged. They don't pay income taxes. Presumably, when April 15 rolls around each year, they don't file. They feel that they don't have to pay taxes because the people who benefit from government programs don't deserve the money they've earned by their own hand. But, if everyone were to forgo their taxes because they felt that they owed the government and other people nothing, then the highways they use, the schools they send their children to, and the fine men and women in uniform that protects them from the "evil-doers" would go the way of the Dodo bird.

Similarly, some of the government programs sponsored by income taxes benefit the general public. For example, transportation infrastructure improvement programs are the result of government sponsored programs. Is Mr. Day suggesting that we rid not only universal health coverage but also transportation infrastructure improvement programs? To draw a line between government sponsored programs is arbitrary at best.

Premise 5 is more controversial than Premise 1. Mr. Day provides no support for it. The lack of support for premise 5 suggests that we reject it.

How would one go about supporting premise 5? To do so would be hard (if not impossible) to justify. The government doesn't "take the product of one's labor" and re-distribute it to anyone. We are citizens of the state. The state protects us from outside invasion and from ourselves. What money we do expend is little in comparison to what we are afforded by our protected rights. So, it's not immoral for us to contribute to our own safety, but it's immoral for us not to pay our fair share of the protection of our rights and our fellow citizen's rights.

J. Paul Day regularly contributes to local newspapers, such as The Deseret Morning News, mostly in the form of letters to the editor. See here and here and here for other letters he's written. Almost all of them have one central theme: no one except the patient or the patient's dependents is responsible for health care coverage. I couldn't agree more with Mr. Day's assertion, but I'm not so naive as to think that some people are less well off than we are and that they sometimes find themselves in a predicament they cannot afford to get out of. These people may not be looking for a handout, as Mr. Day implies in his commentary, but they may be searching for ways to afford the care they desperately need.

News Briefs

2007-08-17T23:13:00.000-06:00

Brian Leiter and Philosop-L reports that Susan Hurley has died after battling cancer for several years. Her contributions to philosophy are numerous, but one of her books that I vividly remember reading is Consciousness in Action.

August 16, 2007 is the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. If you ever get to Memphis, head over to Graceland for a tour. If you have time, travel down U.S. Highway 78 to Tupelo, MS. In Tupelo, visit Elvis's birthplace. Be forewarned, however: nothing in the house is original except the window sills and where the house now stands is not where it had stood when Elvis was young. Another thing to know about Elvis's birthplace is that if you visit it three times, then you may - on your fourth tour - try on Elvis's famous leather jacket. (Or at least that's what somebody told me.)

The new Mac is working out very well. It's extremely easy to use! Scott recommended I search my computer for a program known as OmniOutliner. I found it soon after talking with Scott. OO is a no-frills outlining program. It's amazing! For an academic, an outliner program like this is integral for research. My one quibble with the Mac, actually Apple, is that they chose to release the new version of iLife one week after I purchased the Mac. The iLife '06 programs are awesome because they permit you to produce webpages, photos, etc. the way that you want. The programs don't limit you in the way that you structure your pages. I just have to figure out how to upload my webpages to the Weber server.

Dissertation writing is going very well too. I've been very productive the last three weeks, though I haven't been posting snippets to the blog. Most of what I'm doing now is revising the details of my argument. Also, I've discovered a few new problems relevant to what I discuss. So, I'm adding them to the dissertation where appropriate.

Concealed weapons on campus

2007-08-15T22:28:00.001-06:00

Utah institutions of higher education permit students, faculty, and staff to carry concealed weapons on campus. Of course, they may carry them on campus only if they have a permit. (We have to have some limits!)

During a faculty retreat this weekend, several new faculty members who were from other parts of the country seemed to be very concerned about this law. In particular, they were very worried about the prospect of knowing that a student brought a concealed hand gun into their classroom. Many believed that if they knew the student were carrying a gun, they would be intimidated by it. So, what's an instructor to do if they know a student of theirs is carrying a concealed gun on campus?

When adminstrators were asked about the policy at our university, they dodged the question. We were told to see someone else - i.e., the university attorney. This is the correct thing to do under the circumstances because they may not know what the official university policy is.

But I want to brainstorm a bit about the practical issues that arise if an instructor knows that a student is carrying a concealed weapon and it is legal for him/her to do so. First, I'd remain calm - that's probably best for you, the student carrying the weapon, and the students in the class.

Next, I wouldn't approach the student about his/her carrying the weapon. That may invite a confrontation, which is something everyone wants to avoid.

Finally, I'd contact an administrator, like a department chair or dean, to tell them about the fact that a student was carrying a gun to class. This might be hiding behind management, but I don't think it's the faculty's responsibility to disarm or to talk with a student who is armed. Administrators are probably in a better position to know how to deal with the student.

There's a lot of problems that arise from my position. For instance, if the student were to hurt someone - whether a fellow student, faculty, or staff - after I had known he/she was carrying a weapon, then I might be at least partially accountable for not having tried to prevent the student from doing so.

Concealed weapons on campus

2007-08-15T22:28:00.000-06:00

Habitat redescription

2007-08-14T06:25:00.000-06:00

Much of my dissertation considers how the description (and re-description) of action influences people's moral deliberation about some action they want (or want not to) perform. Let me talk about the first part: action description and re-description and dismiss - at least for the moment - how action descriptions influence moral deliberation.

When an action is described in one way and then another way, the question is whether both descriptions refer to the same act or different ones. This has been called the problem of action individuation. The first chapter reviews why the problem of action individuation is important.

Few action theorists have been careful about constructing a strong motivational story for the problem, so I thought it would be a good way to open the dissertation. I provide the conventional motivation story, and follow that story with my own arguments.

My own motivational arguments come from other sources in philosophy, especially ones with practical implications, e.g., just war, active v. passive euthanasia, etc.

In discussing my dissertation with a colleague in zoology, I found that the issue may be much more ubiquitous than I had suspected. I was told that habitat redescription plays a large role in zoologists' (and biologists' for that matter) research. Depending on which way the zoologist or biologist goes about describing the habitat and whether other biologists or zoologists in the field think that the data refers to the same habitat or not seems to play a role in thinking their research is important. Someone who thinks that all habitats are different and - subsequently - that each habitat description refers to different habitats will probably think that others' research will not effect their own. On the other hand, if one thinks that one can have multiple descriptions of the same habitat, then that person may be inclined to accept that those descriptions apply to similar habitats.

I haven't worked out the details of the view, and I'm not well versed in the literature. But I think that this brief discussion I had seems to show that the problem of individuation is present in other disciplines. If it is, then this might be another motivation for continuing the project of action individuation.

Kinda bad news...

2007-08-07T14:42:00.000-06:00

I'm trying to resolve problems with my blogger account now that I've switched to using a Mac. But It looks like I won't be able to use some of the features of blogger.

From the blogger help desk:

"Drag-and-drop customization of the new Blogger’s new template system (layouts) does not work in Safari, nor does fonts and colors customization. You must use either Firefox or Internet Explorer 6+ to use these features of the new Blogger. (They also work mostly with Opera 9, though with some visual glitches.)"

The question is whether I want to download Firefox or IE6+.

Philosopher's Carnival

2007-08-07T14:38:00.000-06:00

Enigmania hosts the newest Philosopher's Carnival here: http://enigmanically.blogspot.com/2007/08/51st-philosophers-carnival.html.

Life w/ a Mac

2007-07-30T14:21:00.001-06:00

I've been looking at Macs for about a year. I finally purchased one this week. But now I have to contend with learning how to use blogger.com with a Mac. You should notice that I've failed to create links in the previous post on Natural rationality. This is one thing I'm not sure how to do yet.

I'm learning; hopefully, I learn quickly. Back to dissertating!

Natural rationality

2007-07-30T14:14:00.000-06:00

Natural rationality has a nice blog post on experimental philosophy (http://naturalrationality.blogspot.com/2007/07/moral-stance-brief-introduction-to.html). His blog isn't too shabby either - well, it's down right really cool.

HT: http://experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com/experimental_philosophy/2007/07/natural-rationa.html

Dissertation progress report

2007-07-26T16:59:00.000-06:00

Many of you don't know that I'm currently working on revising my dissertation. I am!

At this stage, my dissertation advisor has suggested several revisions. Yesterday, I completely revised chapter 3, which turns out to be largely a review of literature chapter.

The next few blog posts will be dedicated to material in my dissertation, whether I explicitly refer to it or not. Your comments would be greatly appreciated. The first few blog posts will be excerpts from chapter 3.

Today (and tomorrow and next week, for that matter) I'm revising chapter 2. Chapter 2 is defending experimental philosophy, and it employs a lot of material from a colloquium paper I presented at Weber State University in April 2006. Given that much has been published about experimental philosophy as a philosophical subdiscipline, I've had to incorporate arguments from these published articles.

A full draft of my dissertation must be completed by August 10th.

Around the horn: x-Phi edition

2007-07-26T09:39:00.000-06:00

Dave Chalmers has posted a re-cap of the x-phi meets a-phi conference held at ANU (available here). Ditto for Alex Plakias's blog post at GoGrue (available here).

Thomas Nadelhoffer has posted a list of experimental friendly departments (available here, the new post is somewhat a follow-up of this post); the list is ordered chronologically using Brian Leiter's Philosophical Gourmet Report.

Wes Anderson has created an experimental philosophy page on Facebook. Search for it using the group search box in Facebook.

What's going on in Wyoming?

2007-07-25T11:31:00.000-06:00

I find this hard to believe. Anyone who's been to Wyoming knows how much space there is for wildlife to roam free. Although I think the new development has forced wildlife to relocate, I don't think mule deer or grouse are "in jeopardy."

Whether the new development has endangered a species is questionable too. I'm not supporting more drilling in Wyoming - after all, that would ruin Wyoming's charm - I just want more concrete evidence for the claims in the article.

Grow a brain!!!

2007-07-24T14:04:00.000-06:00

Much discussion has been circulating around the blogosphere about a man who has only about 14% of his brain. Even though he fails to have all of his brain matter, he can still interact with the world at large, e.g., hold a job, raise a family, etc.

A picture of the man's brain I copied from Cognitive Daily is to the left of the text. Given the discovery of this man's brain and the recent finding that cochlear implants may restore hearing to those who went deaf as a child, the evidence seems to show that the brain is highly adaptable.

HT: Cognitive daily

The Kamm Poll

2007-07-24T13:52:00.000-06:00

Matthew Liao, a graduate student partial to experimental philosophy, has posted a poll at Ethics-Etc. on a thought experiment that appears in Frances Kamm's new book Intricate Ethics. You can view the poll here.

Though I think the poll is sufficient for discussion on the blog, there might be a problem in its design. (Perhaps I'm being a bit uncharitable in my next comment; I'm not too concerned b/c it's nit-picky and one that I'm sure Matthew would fix in a laboratory setting.) The question is ambiguous. It asks, "is it permissible to bomb?" Of course, the answer has to be yes because one could bomb anything if they choose to do so - they just have to have the right equipment, i.e., a bomb and - presumably - a plane from which to drop the bomb. The question needs to be more specific. The question might be: is it morally permissible to bomb the munitions factory? (I believe this is implied by the context of the blog post.)

Action under a description: what the folk say

2007-07-22T16:08:00.000-06:00

Here's a brief experimental philosophy paper (click here) I threw together very quickly based on some data I gathered in the Spring. The paper argues that people's intuitions about reasons for action influence the way they individuate actions.

Comments are welcome and very much appreciated!

(I may take down the link if I find too many problems with the paper when I read it through again.)

MySpace and Experimental Philosophy

2007-07-22T14:57:00.000-06:00

(I believe) Thomas Nadelhoffer has set up a myspace page for experimental philosophy. (At the very least, he's alerted us to the page in the experimental philosophy blog.) See it here.

I'm not a member of myspace.com, but I'm a member of Facebook. And Facebook doesn't have an experimental philosophy group or member page. So, Facebook members - especially those who are friendly to the experimental philosophy movement - may want to pull together a page (or at least a group) for experimental philosophy.

What would be really interesting is for a Facebook group to emerge with a polling widget so that we can poll visitors to the experimental philosophy Facebook group page. We may want to start with an easy question like: "how many fingers am I holding up?" (Sorry, inside joke.)

HT: Experimental Philosophy

Addendum: I stand corrected. There are two groups in Facebook concerning experimental philosophy. But I don't think they're what Nadelhoffer or any other x-phil'ers have in mind.

Wonderful tribute to a great "college teacher"

2007-07-21T13:56:00.000-06:00

Stuart Rachels has a wonderful webpage dedicated to his father James Rachels, a philosophy professor and very influential moral philosopher of the 20th century. He died of bladder cancer in 2003. His books (and edited collections) are very popular in introductory and advanced undergraduate philosophy classes.

Anyone interested in moral philosophy, particularly applied ethics, should read at least one of James's essays. Perhaps his most widely read work is "Active and Passive Euthanasia." His argument is that there's no rational basis for the distinction between killing and letting die.

HT: Leiter Reports

Carnival time... 'the Dog Days of Summer'

2007-07-16T12:09:00.000-06:00

The new philosophy carnival is available here.

Thinking Blindspots

2007-07-05T14:01:00.000-06:00

How many times have you read an essay by an author who's considered very important by everyone you know only to ask: why didn't s/he say x? It turns out that thinking has blindspots, just as there are blindspots in driving a car. See this brief article on the phenomena.

If we have thinking blindspots, then could this at least partly contribute to an explanation of why we are so bad at selection tasks? Perhaps better thinkers have a greater capacity not to become distracted by the details, whereas everyday folks become easily distracted by the details.

Muscle memory or brain power?

2007-07-02T20:11:00.000-06:00

Sport psychologists, personal trainers, and - sometimes more importantly - golf professionals speak of "muscle memory." According to their interpretation, since the body's muscles have some kind of special memory capacity, you will be able to repeat appropriate mechanical physical movement just by doing whatever it is you're doing well over and over again.

I've always been skeptical of the notion of muscle memory, even though - for all intents and purposes - the best athletes in the world seem able to repeat physical movements very precisely.

I've thought that our brain is composed in such a way that the best athletes in the world are able to repeat physical movements precisely because they are able to learn from their mistakes and not repeat those mistakes. Apparently, this applies to the lay person too. As CogNews reports, a new study at the University of Exeter may shed some much needed light on the idea of muscle memory.

If a study's not already been done, one may want to compare the way athletes learn from their mistakes and the way that a lay person, i.e., a non-athlete but a "weekend" golfer or an "intramural" softball or baseball player, learns from mistakes. I imagine there must be some kind of statistically significant difference to account for the professional - amateur divide.

Tinkering on a Saturday morning...

2007-06-30T09:00:00.000-06:00

Google has a customized search engine feature anyone can add to their personal webpage, blog, or google homepage. Since I don't feel like going to Leiter Reports blog everytime I want some information about the profession, etc., I decided to build one for Leiter Reports: A Group Blog and the Philosophical Gourmet Report.

(Note: Leiter Reports has a customized search engine available on the webpage. I wanted to build one for my Google homepage, so I could search his page without trekking over to his page. Jeez - am I lazy!)

You can add the customized search engine by clicking here and following the directions.

Separate but Equal?

2007-06-29T20:13:00.000-06:00

The Supreme Court decided last week against voluntary integration programs based on race. Their primary reason seems to be that racial balancing doesn't promote "diversity." The court, in its majority opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, argued that forced integration programs wholly based on the race of students is unconstitutional.

Numerous folks, bloggers, political pundits, etc., have weighed in on the Supreme Court's decision. In the interest of buying some time before I contribute my own argument, I have pasted some of the discussion that's been going on elsewhere in this blogosphere.

I'm buying time because I want to read the Court's opinion before I draw up an argument for or against the decision. Much of what has been written about the decision is based in heresay rather than fact. Many obviously haven't bothered to read the Court's opinion. Those who have read it haven't read it carefully.

Ward Connerly, chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, either hadn't read the Court's opinion or had read snippets of what had been said on blogs or in the media. Two things he needs to get right is: (i) Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District #1 has every thing to do with segregation in a school and (ii) the Court's opinion does not affect Grutter v. Bollinger. If Connerly is the chairman of an organization and he likes to generate opinions about Supreme Court cases, he probably should read them before he has an opinion about them! I think that Ward Connerly has more to do with this organization.)

Vanessa Hernandez of Supreme Court - School Integration writes:

What scares me most about the rollback on Brown’s promise of school integration is not the impact it may have on academic achievement (although I do think that school districts, spooked by this ruling, will be reluctant to even talk about race in schools, thus making it extremely difficult to provide at risk students with the additional resources they need). Rather, I’m troubled by the possibility that more children in this country will be educated in a segregated environment, lacking the understanding, empathy, and personal connection to people of other backgrounds which is necessary to participate in both American democracy and a global society.

Scott Lemieuxwrites:

Roberts's plurality opinion rests on the assertion that racial classifications intended to perpetuate a caste system should be considered the precise legal equivalent of racial classifications intended to remedy segregation. This is exceptionally unpersuasive, and also makes it almost impossible to actually remedy the ongoing de facto segregation of American school systems, much of which has roots in various forms of state discrimination (not just formal apartheid in the South, but the drawing of arbitrary school district lines to create segregated systems, local ordinances encouraging residential segregation, etc.).

The ACLU of Massachusetts charitably interprets the SCOTUS decision:

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision on the Seattle and Louisville case neither reversed Brown v. Board of Education nor prohibited measures designed to ensure equality in education. Instead, the Court's decision provides a road map for efforts to desegregate public education so that students of all races can have equal educational opportunities.

I think that Rick Perlstein of Common Sense, sums it up very well indeed: "The idea that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court could cough up such a ludicrous hairball is evidence of a nation gone mad with amnesia."

Sclblogger, of Supreme Court - School Integration blog, cites the reactions of the actual attorneys involved in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education:

-Robert L. Carter, the lawyer who Roberts quotes directly (and now a 90-year-old senior federal judge in Manhattan) explains how the Chief Justice distorted the purpose of and historical context behind his words:
"All that race was used for at that point in time [the 1950s] was to deny equal opportunity to black people. It’s to stand that argument on its head to use race the way they use it now."-Columbia Professor Jack Greenberg, who worked on the Brown case for the plaintiffs, called Roberts’ interpretation “preposterous.” He explained that,“The plaintiffs in Brown were concerned with the marginalization and subjugation of black people. They said you can’t consider race, but that’s how race was being used. . . Following Brown, there was massive resistance. This is essentially the rebirth of massive resistance in more acceptable form.”
-William T. Coleman Jr., a lawyer in Brown who now works as a lawyer in Washington, explained that,“The majority opinion is 100 percent wrong. It’s dirty pool to say that the people Brown was supposed to protect are the people it’s now not going to protect.”

What's the fallout? Well, more litigation. A group of parents in Lynn, Massachusetts have decided to challenge the school district's including "race" among the factors in a student's wanting to attend a school outside his/her neighborhood. The full story is here.

Philosophy@USU

2007-06-29T19:09:00.000-06:00

I recently found a philosophy weblog at Utah State University (http://www.usuphilosophy.com). Charlie Huenemann authors many of the posts (all of what I read). His other weblog (click here) covers a lot of stuff, what some might call political, social, and intellectual commentary.

Huenemann specializes in the history of modern philosophy, especially Spinoza. For the time being, since there doesn't seem to be much distinction between the two weblogs in terms of authorship, I provide a link to Huenemann's blog. Should other authors begin posting on the Philosophy@USU I will add that link too.

Podcasting

2007-06-27T17:04:00.000-06:00

Podcasts are sound or video recordings available for download from an internet provider. Podcasts are usually free, though they can be intended for a subscription only audience.

People in philosophy have used podcasts for class (search for Hubert Dreyfus or existentialism in iTunes), for online conferences (see Jeff McMahon's lecture here or Ernest Sosa's lecture here), and for general consumption (via Philosophy Talk, a radio broadcast). Although I think incorporating technology into the classroom is important, I hesitate to use podcasts. Let me explain.

(1) Introducing podcasting into the classroom. I've got a pretty good track record of using discussion effectively in large classrooms - say 100 or more students. Discussion improves not only my understanding of the material but it helps the student understand the material better. Recent history shows that students who engage in classroom discussion usually receive higher grades in the class.

Podcasts may inhibit discussion. If I incorporate podcasts, I fear that students will be less forthcoming. They will know that what they say is being recorded. If they know they're being recorded, then they might hesitate to discuss for fear of someone they don't know listening to the publicly accessible content. To circumvent this problem, I might restrict access to the podcasts. But this will surely result in more emails from students who forget the password. So, this will be more work for me.

Ultimately, my biggest fear is that the classroom dynamic may change. Students should feel free to ask questions and discuss without fearing that they're being recorded. My class will have to start with an explanation that they're already under constant surveillance by roaming webcams. Since they're already being surveilled, there's no reason to fear for discussing something in class. Moreover, I can say that the podcast will be removed from public consumption once the class is completed.

(2) Legal problems. The primary legal hurdle is: am I violating any university policy by podcasting my classroom activities? So far as I have read in the policies and procedure manual, I would not be violating any explicit rules of the university.

Implicit rules are a different story. If I make content available publicly, then those who do not attend the university will have access to classes offered by the university. Surely, this isn't in their favor because those who consume the podcast haven't paid tuition. Since they haven't paid tuition, they have no right to benefit from the lectures I post.

The easiest way around the legal problem is to check with the powers-that-be to ask for permission to use podcasts in the classroom. Much of the semester will be an experiment, but I believe that podcasting will be a pedagogical tool the future can hardly do without.

(3) Will attendance drop? If students know they can hear the lecture later that day by downloading it from the internet, will they be less apt to attend class? I'm especially worried about students who should be in the classroom as a means of helping them focus.

One of the advantages of podcasting lectures is that students will be able to review the lecture later if they missed something in class. Oftentimes students want me to repeat an explanation or an argument the following class period because their notes were incomplete. To complete their notes they will just have to download and to listen to the podcast using their favorite mp3 player.

If attendance becomes a problem, then I may have to institute a strict attendance policy. But I really don't want to do that, since taking attendance is time consuming in very large classes.

Note: An interesting discussion about podcasting is available here. Warren seems to think that it's not a coincidence that I posted on podcasting. I can assure him it is. I didn't know of his discussion until it popped up on statcounter. Also, I've been messing around with this post since the end of May. Thanks for the link!

Three paper drafts

2007-06-26T22:55:00.001-06:00

I had a weekend of great accomplishment. So far as I can tell my recent success has been brought on by a serious case of dissertation anxiety.

First, I revised and submitted for publication a paper on Wittgenstein and nonsense.

Second, I revised and submitted for publication a paper on Tarantino and retributive justice.

Finally, I revised a paper I've entitled Action under a description: what the folk say. I want to tinker with it b/f I post a draft to my blog.

To top it all off I've got three things on the burner:

(1) experimental epistemology stuff
(2) The New American Wittgensteinians and Therapy
(3) Action individuation and planning theories of practical reasoning

Tales of Modernity hosts latest Philosophy Carnival

2007-06-26T10:48:00.000-06:00

The latest philosophy carnival is here.

Is parental guidance suggested?

2007-06-25T22:46:00.000-06:00

Nope! I'm clean, which is more than I can say for some blogs I read. But I'm kinda embarrassed that my blog joins the ranks of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, 101 Dalmations, Shrek. Am I some sort of pansy?

Mingle² - Online Dating

HT: Siris

Which type of emailer are you?

2007-06-24T11:47:00.000-06:00

PsyBlog cites a recent study by Heir, Renaud and Ramsey (2007) that argues there are three types of emailers (click here). Some people get to email when they can, and they aren't stressed about replying to email. These are the relaxed emailers. Then, there are people motivated to reply immediately to email they've received. These are the driven emailers. Finally, email frustrates and stresses out a third group of people. Every time they open the emailbox they feel stressed. These are the stressed emailers.

Though I answered that I'm a driven emailer, I think I fall somewhere between the driven and the stressed. When school's in session, I worry that opening my professional emailbox (weber.edu account) will result in hours of formulating responses to students and colleagues questions or comments.

Despite the stress of my professional emailbox, I enjoy opening and reading the email in my personal email account. Oftentimes, I receive email from long-lost friends, colleagues I don't get to see very often, or persons interested in my work (though, this is a rarity). I enjoy reading these emails, and I enjoy responding to them. The type of email I receive in my personal emailbox is a source of joy and happiness.

So, if I were to answer the survey truthfully, I'd have to say that it depends on which email account the surveyors are talking about. Perhaps I'm an anomaly; maybe, people don't have more than one email account. It has been my experience that they do, and empirical research - if in fact that is what we can call this informal survey - should reflect that fact.

Ogden's great

2007-06-23T22:18:00.000-06:00

Hot on the heels of the NY Times spread Friday, the local newspaper, i.e., the Standard-Examiner, published a 10-or-so page insert about the major economic and business plans for Ogden and the surrounding areas. For the most part, I found the insert informative.

The argument goes something like this: (1) the Ogden area real estate is affordable and convenient; (2) the Ogden area is attracting major players in the outdoor recreation industry and other industries (the article cites Malt-o-Meal as an example); (3) affordable and convenient real estate in addition to employment attracts people to a region of the country; (4) thus, the ongoing economic and business development will attract people to the Ogden area.

I agree. (and here comes the notorious "but.") The article seems to overlook two very important facts people in other parts of the country find very important. They find these to be so important that they won't move to other parts of the country that don't offer them.

(1) Nightlife. My best friend lives in Connecticut, in a suburb of NYC, and he epitomizes the 30-something yuppie that Ogden's trying to attract. For him, though, nightlife is very important; in particular, he's looking for nightlife with real beer, fun bars, and dancing. He's looking for "clubs," a place to dance, etc. If Ogden (and Utah for that matter) wants to attract the 30-something crowd from outside the state, then the rules are going to have to bend a bit.

(2) What's the deal with outsiders? I came from a small-town in suburban Boston. Everyone knew everyone else's business. We called these people "townies." I hated them. But one thing townies didn't do is treat outsiders badly. If you weren't from Norwood and if a townie ran into you on the street, they'd probably ask you where you were from and whether you had the time for a beer, a coffee, or a soda. Here, it's much different (at least off-campus). I like to walk to-and-from school, and I like public transportation. People have flipped me off, almost run me over when I'm walking in the crosswalk (to add insult to injury these folks usually honk their horn; I remedy the situation by walking very slowly and staring at the driver very intensely), and handed me a $1-bill as if I'm some sort of vagabond. If people here really want outsiders to move to Ogden - as it appears they do - then there going to have to realize that they're different. Celebrate diversity!

In sum, I like Ogden. I don't want it to change too drastically. The Junction is nice, but I wouldn't install more "clubs" to satisfy outsiders. I'd initiate a different approach by talking about a virtually alcohol/drug-free town. Ogden's got a lot of "charm," I'd tell'em.

(Perhaps this post is a bit too critical. In a future post, I'll share my positive thoughts about the new economic/business development in and around Ogden, e.g., Ogden didn't make the same mistake as SLC with the Gateway.)

The Fleecing of the Academy

2007-06-23T20:03:00.000-06:00

Some people may sell Rolex look-alikes on the streets of New York; others sell DVDs of forthcoming blockbuster movies. But it takes a special kind of ninny to burn and to sell DVDs compiling copyrighted academic papers in philosophy.

Per Bill Edmundson's report, an eBay auction offers 600+ philosophy books and articles (click here). All of the material - so far as I can tell in one pass - is copyrighted by Oxford UP, Cambridge UP, and numerous journals. Wynnjammer07, the eBay auctioneer, has already sold several copies of his DVDs. All of the buyers (equally dim-witted) are listed on his feedback page.

A legal question: Could Wynnjammer 07 and all of the buyers be sued for copyright infringement? (I'm pretty sure they're all liable.)

Besides the philosophy books and articles on sale, wynnjammer07 sells hundreds of psychology books and articles too (click here). At least two philosophers show up on this list: Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (though wynnjammer lists the author as "Flanagan"), and Flanagan, The Science of the Mind. Since many of the books are collections and since I can't remember off-hand the contributors to these volumes, everyone should check the psychology list too.

Edmundson also points out that you may download many books and articles here and here. (Anyone may lodge a complaint at Mininova website.)

HT: Leiter Reports

Ogden in the NY Times

2007-06-22T18:23:00.001-06:00

Ogden, Utah is quickly becoming a great destination for travellers and for people seeking an affordable place to live. A story by Wendy Knight was a feature in the Escape section of the New York Times today. You can read it by clicking here.

What I find interesting is Wendy's comparison of Ogden, UT to Boulder, CO. Anyone who has lived or visited these two places knows there is a world of social difference between the two. The difference makes Ogden a much more charming place to live than Boulder. (Perhaps I'm a bit prejudice to say this!)

Federal Reserve Board Regulation D: Is it really protecting America?

2007-06-15T11:58:00.000-06:00

FRB Regulation D limits the number of electronic transactions you can make from a federally insured savings account into any other account during each statement cycle. The limitation pertains to the following types of transactions:

Checks;
Telephone transfers;
Online banking transfers (including Bill Pay);
Debit card transfers;
Overdraft protection transfers; and
Pre-authorized transfers from your account (including automatic and wire transfers).

According to the regulation, you are limited to 6 transfers per statement cycle, and only 3 of these transactions can be by check, check card, or similar order or withdrawal. For some financial institutions, a fee of $10 may be assessed if you exceed the limits in any statement cycle. Also, if you exceed the limits during 3 separate statement cycles during a 12-month period, your account may be changed to a checking account or frozen.

Regulation D requires all financial institutions to monitor savings accounts for the transactions listed above. Why should the government (via financial institutions) be able to monitor citizen's financial transactions? It's the Bush administration, so the natural answer is: terrorism. They're afraid that anyone who transfers funds electronically are engaging in terrorism. So, when you transfer that $100 from savings into a checking account to buy those shoes you wanted, you're engaging in activities deemed to be a form of terrorism by the federal government.

Terrorists have bank accounts, and they must transfer money from one account to another. I'm not disputing that fact. I don't even want to dispute the fact that the government should be able to monitor suspicious activity that could be linked with terrorism. But have we become so paranoid that a government is justified in monitoring all customers for transferring funds from an interest-bearing savings account to other accounts?

Recent evidence has shown that the savings rate is -1%. What that means is that we're spending more than we're saving. It's no wonder we're not saving! We don't want our accounts to be monitored. If we know that our accounts will be monitored by the feds, there's an incentive not to save. We don't want the government snooping in our financial transactions.

One thing to note about Regulation D is about the assessment fee. If you ask a customer service representative at a financial institution about the fee, they will claim that it is a federal requirement that customers be assessed a fee. But a fee isn't mentioned in Section 204.2 of Regulation D, which outlines the parameters for the excess transfers from a savings account. So, their claim isn't entirely accurate. They're charging for fees assessed by the government for the monitoring service.

48th Philosophers Carnival

2007-06-05T19:53:00.000-06:00

The newest philosophers carnival is now posted at Common Sense Philosophy.

Mea culpe

2007-06-03T13:01:00.000-06:00

I reviewed my blog page yesterday evening after posting on Hempel and experimental philosophy. I discovered that I omitted a link to Mixing Memory ( hereafter "MM"), a favorite blog of mine.

I attribute my oversight to one of two excuses. First, I could have forgotten to add it when I converted to the new (and very much improved) blogger.com account. The new blogger didn't import my links for some reason. Or, I didn't know how to categorize MM in my favorite blog listing. MM is a unique blog covering many different topics in psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and general science.

I've categorized MM under: Blogs by individuals in Philosophy I read. I could be mistaken in categorizing MM that way. Until I have a critical mass of science/cognitive science blogs to link, I will continue to categorize MM under the current heading. Once I have that critical mass, I'll change the list. Thanks for bearing with me!

By the by, if you've not had a chance to check out MM and if you have interest in these areas, I strongly advise your checking out MM's blog!

Image explanation

2007-05-30T11:18:00.000-06:00

The image I've added to the title bar is my backyard - literally. Well, that's a half-truth. First, the distant peak is Ben Lomond. That's the peak in the left-to-center part of the image. I can see that peak from my bedroom window. If you were to place my residence in the image, I would live between the peak in the foreground and the peak in the background.

Since I'm from the east coast where mountains are mostly inland and they're not as majestic as the ones in the West, I've always had a strange fascination with the Wasatch Front. When I first moved to Salt Lake, I would wake up, walk outside, and be amazed that the mountains were still there. If I move back to the east coast, it'll be a strange adjustment to not seeing snow-capped mountains all the time.

WMDs are so 2003; ELMDs are definitely 2009

2007-05-29T14:24:00.000-06:00

We've all heard about W.M.D.s, but do you know that the Bush administration will soon be using a new acronym?

The new acronym the Bush administration will have the general public learn before 2009 is E.L.M.D. What's it stand for? Extraordinary Level of Mass Disruption.

According to a new presidential directive linked by dailykos.com, the president may continue his ~~reign~~ presidency if some event leads to "extraordinary levels of mass disruption."

You may ask: what is an extraordinary level of mass disruption? According to the directive, almost anything counts as an E.L.M.D. There could be a massive amount of cases of heartburn that causes a run on Tums. The Bush administration could argue that "that" is an E.L.M.D.

Where does this lead? It's simple. The Bush administration had to fudge a "contingency" plan to remain in power after the 2008 election. Using the directive, the Bush administration can strike down virtually any previous directive (if not Constitutional amendment) for one reason: he's the President.

Given the current political environment, we will surely see the Republican base stand behind Bush's new directive. This will go to show that even if the President creates a directive inconsistent with the Constitutional law, people will follow him blindly.

Paradise Lost and Envy

2007-05-28T13:43:00.000-06:00

Anyone who's ever played golf with me knows how attached I am to my clubs. I've had my clubs since 1991. This is unprecedented among golfers. Players typically turn over 5 to 10 sets in that time. But I'm playing with the same clubs I played in high school and college.

I play them because I know how far I can hit each club within 5 yards and because I hit them straight, 90% to 95% of the time. My feeling has always been: why change clubs if I have such confidence in my irons.

I've been feeling a bit nostalgic since 2005. In 2005, I went to 2nd Swing, a now defunct used golf equipment store on State St. in Salt Lake City. Before I entered the store, I resolved that if I found an old TPA XXIV putter, I would buy it - no matter how expensive it was. I played the TPA XXIV putter for most of the 90s, and I racked up several tournament wins using it. I could sink putts from almost any distance through the worst Donald Ross undulations - I grew up at Ponkapoag #1, a Donald Ross design and municipal course in Canton, MA. Sure enough, 2nd Swing had one for $10. So, I bought it, and I began to play it again.

It felt great to have an old friend back in my bag.

The first few rounds were rough. I couldn't sink a 2- or 3-foot putt to save my life. I was frustrated! But I remembered that that was how things started when I bought my first TPA putter in 1989. So, I held onto it for the last two seasons.

This season my putting has been fairly decent. I'm averaging 16.75 putts per 9 holes. That's not too bad since I don't practice more than 1-hour per week. My success in putting, however, has made me want to purchase the set of clubs I had before my current set.

My current set consists of 2-SW Lynx Tour Design irons, the same type of irons Fred Couples used to win the '92 Masters and Ernie Else used to win the '94 U.S. Open. Before I played Lynx irons, I had a set of Taylor Made Tour Precision T-D irons. I've been searching for a set on eBay. Call me nostalgic or retro-golfer; whatever, I don't care. I just enjoy these clubs over the ultra-fat-ultra-huge irons many players prefer today.

(I'm hunting for a Tour Burner 7-degree Taylor Made driver with a Tour Silver stiff (or extra-stiff) flex shaft. If anyone's seen one, let me know. I'll pay big money for it!)

Two Quick Notes

2007-05-26T16:49:00.000-06:00

(1) The Creation Museum opens Memorial Day in Cincinnati. Anyone interested in learning how to regress scientifically ought to attend the grand opening celebration. The museum reportedly has exhibits (animatronic for sure) depicting the co-existence of humans and dinosaurs, the age of the Earth is merely 6,000 years old, and the Earth is actually flat.

In association with the Creation Museum's opening, we should note that three of the Republican candidates for the Presidency deny - yes, deny, reject, "deep six" - evolution. The country could have a leader that rejects scientific consensus in favor of what's said in the pulpit. (Does this remind anyone of a period known as the "Dark Ages?")

(2) 30-something males - including myself - reportedly earn less than their fathers' generation did at the same age when incomes are adjusted for inflation. I don't find this surprising at all! Molly Selvin, of The Los Angeles Times, reports that John E. Morton, director of the Economic Mobility Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts, says that outsourcing and the demise of higher-paying manufacturing jobs have contributed to the lagging male incomes. These factors along with women entering the workforce might have exerted downward pressure.

Granted, these factors may have played a role in the declining income, but "corporate greed" more likely is the source of lower wages for young, ambitious 30-something workers. If corporations can hire young workers at a lower wage and if younger workers feel that they need to take a job that pays lower than their expectations to provide for their family or themselves, then they will do it. Corporate bosses know this, and they take advantage of it.

Ashton Square Rising

2007-05-24T17:11:00.000-06:00

In today's Standard Examiner, Scott Schwebke reports a new development named "Ashton Square." Apparently, Ogden's Community and Economic Development Director Stuart Reid has created and will soon construct a new development in downtown Ogden. The development will be named after his grandson and known as "Ashton Square." The development will contain retail, entertainment, and residential space, and it will be located in the new redevelopment scheme known as "The Junction."

I'm not sure if Stuart has done his homework. Retail and entertainment space will be very enticing for local businesses if the lease agreements are reasonably priced. My guess is they won't be. I say this because he's expecting to sell residential units starting at $300K and penthouses in the Ashton for $1Million.

The median home price in Ogden is $127K, according to Money.com. The median income is $42K. On that kind of income, one cannot afford anything but a house at $500K. Living expenses excluded. So, if you want a fancy house and nothing else, then living in the Ashton is affordable.

Two things favor Stuart's plan. First, the median age of Ogden residents is 28.1 years. This is good because young residents will tend to stay in the area if the economy remains in good shape. This is the second point. The economy is in very good shape. Job growth is good, and income taxes are very low for one of the top places to live in the country.

Time will be tell whether Ashton Square succeeds or flops. With at least 24 people interested in purchasing residential units, it seems that Ashton Square might succeed.

Hempel on Experimental Philosophy

2007-05-18T17:16:00.001-06:00

Have others thought about using social scientific methods in philosophy? This question has been bugging me for a while. Some Norweigan philosophers have used empirical assessments in philosophical research, e.g., Arne Naess. The historical record is - for the most part - untouched. So, why not explore it? That's exactly what I've set out to do.

I'd like to comment on a comment of Naess's work. Naess worked up some empirical assessments for the use of synonymy in ordinary language. He endeavored to develop a theory of meaning and meaning relationships in actual usage. The title of his preliminary work was Toward a Theory of Interpretation and Preciseness, which was published in Theoria in 1949. Hempel provided a commentary on the preliminary work in the Journal of Symbolic Logic 15.2: 154 (1950).

Hempel raises three points with respect to Naess's empirical work in interpretation and preciseness. (I haven't had a chance to read Naess's book of the same title released after Hempel's comments were published in J. Symbolic Logic, but it'd be interesting to discover whether Naess took Hempel's comments seriously.) First, Hempel argues that since it is hard to formulate empirical questions without becoming overly abstract or vague, he thought it would be unlikely that a "reasonably precise and well-confirmed general theory" would be attained. Second, a virtue of Naess's project is that synonymy is relativized to persons and kinds of situations, but this also translates into trouble for Naess since there is no "clear indication of what the range of permissible values for the situation variables" will be. Finally, Hempel says that Naess's procedure is questionable given that he has constructed an elaborately defined system of concepts first and then to look at the theoretical connections later.

In one form or another, these same objections have been raised against experimental philosophy recently. So, it seems fruitful for current experimentalists to have an idea of the exchange between Naess and Hempel (and others).

Toulmin on Naess's Expressions of Truth

2007-05-18T16:34:00.000-06:00

Stephen Toulmin writes of Arne Naess's empirical work on expressions of "true," etc (Arne Naess. 1953. An Empirical Study of the Expressions "True," "Perfectly Certain," and "Extremely Probable." Oslo: Kommisjon Hos Jacob Dybwad, pp. 41):

One must hope that, before Naess gets too immersed in the practical work of framing and using more and more similar questionnaires, he will sit down and tell us what exactly they are designed to prove. Until this is done, it will be easy for philosophers to ignore his work.

Like experimental philosophers today, both philosophers and social scientists are concerned with Naess's empirical work. On the one hand, his article is written to expose the importance of ordinary intuitions. This leaves the philosophers suspicious. On the other hand, he doesn't want to draw too many conclusions from the data he collected because psychologists would be suspicious.

Toulmin continues:

It would be a pity if Naess's work were to be entirely ignored, for, reading through the paper, one certainly feels that the reactions of his answerers prove something about the nature of our concepts.

Toulmin complains that Naess's work lacks a clear thesis, though he finds Naess's contribution important. It shows that people's intuitions can be harnessed by empirical means.

Addendum: My apologies to everyone, especially Richhard! I wrote this post in haste on Friday evening before going to a party. My mind must have been on the party, not on writing the post. I've added links or citations for Naess's and Toulmin's work. (Link to jstor is hand-recorded, so here's the citation for Toulmin's review: (Jan., 1956.) Philosophical Review 65(1): 116-118.)

Why should we care about the problem of evil?

2007-05-17T21:11:00.000-06:00

I don't know why I have been thinking about problems in the philosophy of religion, but I have been. Some of my journal entries have been about immortality and the problem of personal identity. Future Blog Post Spoiler: I don't think there's a serious problem of personal identity at all if our resurrected selves are completely distinct from our physical selves; we don't have to be the same people we are now - both physically and psychologically speaking - to live an everlasting life. But that's for another post.

Something I noticed when I taught the philosophy of western religion course and a component of my introduction to philosophy course this semester is that many students intuitively believe the problem of evil is a real problem. (When I talk about the problem of evil in this post, I mean the "logical" problem of evil.) They immediately see the inconsistency in the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent and the existence of evil. The inconsistency is a problem for them; but why is it a problem for them? Is the inconsistency enough to drive us to worry about the problem of evil? In other words, is the inconsistency an appropriate motivator for exploring the problem of evil?

In any logic class, the instructor will say that inconsistencies, particularly contradictions, are bad because anything follows from a contradiction. We all want our points to be more salient than that. So, we avoid contradictions.

People are notoriously bad at doing logic, which is shown by Wason's selection task. If people are bad at logic and if people don't like to do things they're bad at, then people will conclude that they won't like a formal logic problem. This is not the case, according to my straw poll. Despite the fact that people are bad at logic and that people don't like to do things they're bad at, people like the logical problem of evil and they see what the problem is.

People who like activities they're bad at are unreasonable. If a person is bad at something, then engaging in that activity is harmful. They're suffering through it. No one should want to hurt themselves. People who purposefully hurt themselves are unreasonable.

I'm probably way off here, but I'm not sure there's any good motivational story for discussing the problem of evil.

Is the LDS Church Christian?

2007-05-16T11:14:00.000-06:00

I've heard a lot of hype lately about the Mormon Church. Some argue that "Mormons" (a.k.a., and more appropriately I might add, the LDS Church) aren't Christians. The hype probably is due in part to Mitt Romney's bid for the White House. Much of the discussion of Romney's Mormonism is reminscient of Kennedy's Catholicism playing a factor in decision-making if (or when) he reaches the White House.

Given that I'm a gentile living among the Latter-Day faithful, I couldn't pass up a chance to discuss this question. Let me get a few things straight: I'm not a Mormon, I have no ties to the LDS Church, and I'm not going to convert anytime soon. Second, I don't think any of the criticisms of the LDS faith are any good. Finally, I believe that none of the arguments supporting the view that the LDS Church is Christian are any good. Both sides of the debate have a long way to go!

One of the more controversial beliefs of the LDS Church is that men become Gods after they die. Very few of the Christian denominations believe that eternal salvation involves men becoming Gods. For this reason, they've dismissed the LDS Church as a Christian denomination on doctrinal grounds.

To my understanding, deification is not an integral part of LDS theology. The Book of Mormon or the other scriptures of the restoration do not mention deification. It was Lorenzo Snow, a president of the LDS Church, that declared, "As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be." So, the Church's fifth president - and prophet - asserted that men will become Gods.

Some LDS scholars defend this principle by arguing that any loving father would want his children to have what he has. So, by analogy, God, the father, wants for his children to be endowed with the same powers and privileges he has. The argument comes with a restriction; God is and will always be the only object of his children's worship.

For the most part, the argument appears to be a good one. But it suffers from two major defects. First, there may be a strange Oedipal complex that results if we think that a father wants his children to have all of what he has. Clearly, there might be some things that the father doesn't want his children to have. So, by analogy, God may not want his children to have the powers and privileges he has. Thus, man may not become what God is.

Second, the analogy compares the natural world with a supernatural world. If the natural world and supernatural world differ in important ways, then the analogy breaks down. Thus, man may not become what God is.

Be that as it may, I think there is good reason to think that deification should be an acceptable Christian theological doctrine. For one, eternal salvation has been thought to be about sharing in the vision of God's grace. If we share in God's vision and if this is an acceptable Christian doctrine, then we may become a part of God. Becoming a part of God is to be as God is. So, the doctrine of deification may not be as controversial as some may think it is; and, we may say that the LDS Church is Christian on this doctrinal ground.

The piano sounds like a philosophers carnival

2007-05-14T21:04:00.000-06:00

The latest philosophers carnival has been posted at nichomachus.net. The latest carnival has a theme. Its them is "practical philosophy." Access it by clicking here.

OPC2 is on(line)

2007-05-14T11:05:00.000-06:00

The second annual online philosophy conference is now on! Check it out by clicking here. Thanks to Thomas Nadelhoffer and Eddy Nahmias for another fine program!

When opportunity knocks...

2007-05-13T21:24:00.000-06:00

Gas prices have soared above the $3.00 mark in Ogden. Gas stations are selling 85 octane - the lowest possible grade at higher altitudes - for an average cost of $3.15 to $3.21. (Readers at lower altitudes should note that the cheapest grade octane available at your stations is probably 86 or 87 octane.) So, when Ogden consumers find cheap gasoline prices, they're going to call their friends and their friends are going to call their friends, etc.

That's exactly what happened Saturday! At approximately 1pm, a computer glitch at a local Ogden gas station caused the pump for premium gasoline to drop from $3.39 9/10 per gallon to $.33 9/10 per gallon. That's real cheap gasoline!

When an unsuspecting Ogdenite filled up his Dodge Ram truck for little more than $20.00, he praised God and called his friends. His friends called their friends. Soon, the station had a long line of cars stretching as far as the eye could see. Watching the event one would be reminded of the oil crisis in the 70s.

A lot people got away with a lot of gas for a tenth of the cost per gallon. According to reporter Molly Bennett of Ogden's Standard Examiner, a Sinclair employee was noted as saying, "No one said a word [about the cost of the gasoline]. People are so dishonest." I didn't partake of the gas fest (primarily because I had filled up Friday for a whopping $30.00, which is a huge amount since I drive a Saturn SL-series automobile). But I can only say to the Sinclair employee, "it takes one to know one."

UPDATE: In today's (5/15/07) Standard Examiner, Wasatch Rambler writer Charles Trentelman suggests that the above is a classic example of stealing gas. Perhaps it is, if we widen the definition of "stealing." But I like to think that we're a capitalistic society.

I think Trentelman makes a harsh accusation because businesses ought to be responsible for selling their products at the marked price. When I sign up for a cell phone or the like, a customer service representative tells me that'll be $59.95/mo. The paperwork says that the company may charge me "fees" for services rendered. When I get my monthly bill and I have to pay $75.00, I don't think they're stealing from me; that'd be awfully arrogant! It is my responsibility to read through the material carefully for all of the fees. So, just as its my fault in the cell phone case, it's the businesses responsibility - the fault of the station attendant - for not changing the cost of the gasoline, shutting down the pump(s), etc.

Is it "troops" or "soldiers"?

2007-05-12T11:42:00.000-06:00

I may have heard something about the distinction between "troops" and "soldiers" on NPR a few weeks ago, but the media's ignorance of the distinction didn't bother me until I read a few stories in the Standard Examiner and on msn.com today.

Oftentimes soldiers are referred to as "troops." But is that the appropriate use of the term? What are the rules for using the term "troops"? Something doesn't seem correct about the use of that term.

"Troop" is defined in the Oxford English dictionary (noun) as "a body of soldiers." Notice that there is no 's' added to the end of the word for it to include more than one soldier. So, a platoon, or approximately 40 soldiers, is a "troop." Similarly, a squad, approximately 12 people, is a "troop." No additional 's' is needed for it to refer to more than one soldier.

The media ignore the fact that one can refer to many soldiers with the word "troop". They use the word "troops." That may seem to be a bit redundant. If the word "troop" denotes a number of soldiers, then that suggests that "troops" refers to a number of many soldiers. That's not how the media use it. For example, on msn.com, a caption of a photo reads, "Iraqi soldiers and U.S. troops conduct a joint search mission..." There are only 6 people in the photo, so my first theory of media usage is out the window.

What else could the media be denoting by the term? Well, here's a theory - it's one that would undermine the belief that the media are liberally biased. They could be referring to the fact that U.S. military personnel are tougher than other people, such as "Iraqi soldiers." Sometimes the term "troop" or "trooper" is used with reference to a person's tough disposition. For instance, saying that you're a trooper means that you are resilient and strong. By implication, this means that those who are referred to as mere "soldiers" aren't as tough as their "trooper" counterparts.

Whatever the use of the term, we have to get clear on what we mean when we use it. I'd hate to "support the troops" but not "support the Iraqi soldiers." After all, we're there to "liberate" them from an "oppressive" regime.

TGIF

2007-05-11T11:24:00.000-06:00

Step 24 is a bit of an impediment, but the rest is gravy.

Ticket to Ride

2007-05-10T22:48:00.000-06:00

A Brood Comb has two recent posts I found very amusing. One is the comic book series entitled Action Philosophers! They are a must read. I found the Mill comic most enjoyable.

The second I used to generate the ticket stub (see below) for all incoming introductory philosophy students. Tanasije created a ticket for the upcoming online philosophy conference.

Light activity here doesn't mean light activity everywhere

2007-02-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted here in a while, but I've been caught up thinking about a lot of problems. Let me point you to a discussion I've just posted at my class blog on Aquinas's Fourth Way. It's a start, and comments are appreciated.

Other things I'm working on presently include a commentary for the MidSouth Philosophy Conference, a paper on Aquinas's Fourth Way, a defense of experimental philosophy for a colloquium talk at Ole Miss on Feb. 22, and further revisions of my action individuation paper.

I've been everywhere... (almost... in the U.S.)

2007-01-18T23:58:00.000-07:00

5 states remaining in my quest for the lower 48.

create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

The 41st Philosophy Carnival

2007-01-17T15:08:00.000-07:00

The new philosophy carnival is posted here. I found Westminster Wisdom's portrayal quite amusing. My apologies for falling asleep at the wheel, but the paper I posted a few days ago has really gotten under my skin.

Action individuation in ordinary language

2007-01-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

I've not posted in a while because I've been working on the following paper. It's about action individuation and ordinary intuitions. If you're not interested in experimental philosophy or you've got serious objections against it, I advise you not to read the paper.

Action individuation in ordinary language

Comments are greatly appreciated!

31st MidSouth Philosophy Conference

2007-01-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

I received word yesterday that my paper was accepted for presentation at the MidSouth Philosophy Conference. As long as I can find an affordable flight, I'll be heading to Memphis, TN at the end of February. I'll be presenting my paper on the New Wittgensteinian interpretation of nonsense. Here's the title and abstract:

Is the New Wittgensteinian Conception of Nonsense Wittgensteinian?

In this paper, I argue that the New Wittgensteinian interpretation concerned with Wittgenstein's conception of nonsense cannot be sustained. The main problem is that the New Wittgensteinians have not looked at what we actually say about nonsense and especially at how the word behaves in our language game. The properly Wittgensteinian way to proceed is to examine actual usage, to see what we call 'nonsense' and on what occasions. Wittgenstein warns us, "don't think, but look!" (PI: 66) The New Wittgensteinians have not heeded this warning; instead, they have turned Wittgenstein's coneption of nonsense into a bit of metaphysics.

Philosophy at 7200' (w/ apologies to Close Range)

2007-01-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

I've been traveling around the U.S. for almost two weeks, and I'm still traveling. I don't mean to be on the road this evening. In fact, I'd prefer to be home in Ogden, UT preparing for the first day of classes. Weather conditions in Wyoming, however, are very bad. Interstate 80 is closed in both directions from Laramie. So, I'm staying in Laramie, Wyoming for this evening (and possibly more if conditions don't improve).

Laramie is home of the University of Wyoming and Marc Moffett. Who is Marc Moffett? Well, he's the creator and a contributor of the blog Close Range. If you've not had a chance to read Close Range, I definitely suggest to do so. There are many fine posts!

The holiday break was very busy for me. I traveled to Washington, to Boston, and to Iowa. All of my trips were very productive.

First, I had a great time at the APA Eastern Division meeting in Washington, D.C. I didn't attend very many sessions, but I had a chance to meet up with people I hadn't seen in quite a while as well as meeting fellow-blogger Brandon of Siris. Brandon and I had a nice meeting discussing our interests and current projects. I'm very interested in Brandon's work on causation in early modern philosophy. I gathered from our discussion there's an interesting line of debate in early modern philosophy from Hume to Malebranche on the concept of causation. Brandon has also tentatively agreed to be a guest blogger on my philosophy of western religion blog this semester. He will be a valuable addition to our discussions.

In addition to meeting with Brandon, I caught up with a former colleague, Scott Wilson. Scott's a contributor at PeaSoup. He works mostly on ethics. Our meeting consisted in discussions of how to approach the interviewing process. We had a fine chat over a wonderful meal!

Much of my time was consumed by meetings with Robert Barnard and Neil Manson. We discussed many topics. Neil, too, will be a contributor to my philosophy of religion class blog. Bob, Neil, and I discussed golf, philosophy of religion, and the state of a priori investigations in light of experimental philosophy, and our future projects.

I also spent a significant amount of time meeting with marketing and publicity people for major publishing houses. They informed me of many new and upcoming releases that would be great for book reviews in the near future.

My time away from Ogden was very productive. I'm anxious to get back to teach and to complete my dissertation!