Robbins Library Notes

Good morning, readers!

I’m choosing a provocative headline today, in light of Nicholas Carr’s recent article in The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?“  Carr’s article is a thoughtful look at how Google (and the Internet in general) is shaping and changing the way we read and interact with words, thoughts, and ideas, and not always for the better.

Needless to say, Carr’s article has provoked a firestorm of criticism, about some of which you can read here and here. Both of these posts show that there are some very serious issues to consider here, and the very real potential for some terrible things to happen, if technology is embraced blindly and thoughtlessly.

Carr’s points are not minor, especially for those of us in academia, where the traditional liberal arts/humanistic model of education is undergoing change, and in some cases, dismantled, in favor of a more vocational preparatory model.  Furthermore, the changes that Carr suggests bear great relevance for philosophy and philosophical education — philosophy is a discipline that requires deep reading and reflection, something not fostered or encouraged by the Internet.  How does philosophy survive and adapt to this new environment?  Are there things we should strive to retain?

Thoughts, readers?  Where do you stand on this?  Do you think that Carr is right?  Or his critics?  Comment away!

While looking over Bookforum.com, I came across a link to Disputatio, a free online philosophy journal.  According to the masthead:

Disputatio aims at publishing first-rate articles and discussion notes on all aspects of analytical philosophy, but especially those dealing with current issues in the philosophies of language, logic, and mind, and also in epistemology and metaphysics, written in English or Portuguese.

The latest issue — Vol. II, no. 23 (November 2007) — is a special issue on normativity and rationality.  The list of articles includes:

• Introduction (Teresa Marques)
• Is Rationality Normative? (John Broome)
• Belief and Normativity (Pascal Engel)
• Intentionality, Knowledge and Formal Objects (Kevin Mulligan)
• Acting Without Reasons (Josep L. Prades)
• What is Normativity? (John Skorupski)

Looking at the archives, there is a lot of good stuff in this journal that my readers might want to considering reading.  (Much of the older materials are in Portuguese, though they seem to have moved over to a mostly English-language format in recent years.)

Additionally, I’ll add the journal to the blogroll, and a link on the Electronic Resources section of the Links page on the Department of Philosophy Web site.

For those interested in philosophy of language: Steven Pinker discusses how language works in this 2005 TED Talk.

For those who don’t know about the TED Talks, here’s a brief description from the TED Web site:

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes)…

The TED Conference, held annually in Long Beach, is still the heart of TED. More than a thousand people now attend — indeed, the event sells out a year in advance — and the content has expanded to include science, business, the arts and the global issues facing our world. Over four days, 50 speakers each take an 18-minute slot, and there are many shorter pieces of content, including music, performance and comedy. There are no breakout groups. Everyone shares the same experience. It shouldn’t work, but it does. It works because all of knowledge is connected. Every so often it makes sense to emerge from the trenches we dig for a living, and ascend to a 30,000-foot view, where we see, to our astonishment, an intricately interconnected whole.

I’ve enjoyed watching a variety of these posted lectures over the last two years or so, and they are always provocative.  If you like Professor Pinker’s talk, you might want to browse the site and view more of the talks.

A recent series of Dilbert cartoons finds Dilbert with a broken moral compass, the result of a traumatic head injury.  With the part of his brain responsible for morality damaged, Dilbert acts in heinous ways, and is quickly promoted to senior management…that is, until his moral compass heals… at which time he faces defenestration.

All humor aside, there are some interesting philosophical questions here, about the nature of morality — is it purely a social construct, or are there parts of the brain set up for morality?  How should one act ethically in work environments? There are no quick answers to these and related questions, but some of the research and thought that do exist on these topics is fascinating.

Good morning, readers, and happy Friday!

I found this article yesterday — via Bookforum.com — which takes a look at the controversial figure of Socrates.  Emily Wilson, author of The Death of Socrates, notes:

We may be in danger of forgetting that Socrates has always been, and remains, a controversial figure. This is a great pity, not least because gadflies cannot help shake us out of our intellectual slumbers if we feel no pain at their bites. I recently wrote a book about the changing ways in which the death of Socrates has been imagined, in art, literature and philosophy since antiquity (The Death of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint, Profile/Harvard UP 2007).I was surprised to find, as I researched this project, that my own devoted attachment to Socrates gradually turned into something more complex, and more antagonistic. One of the main goals of the book was, as it turned out, to show that it is possible not to admire Socrates, and that many people have had good reason to mistrust him. Since the modern cult of Socrates shows no sign of diminishing, this may be a good time to list some of the reasons why one might want to bring him down from his pedestal and quarrel with him face to face.

What do you think, readers?

Good morning, readers!

Found this morning on “American Libraries Direct”: a charming video, titled, “Libraries Are Gonna Make It After All.”  (Those of you who remember the Mary Tyler Moore Show may find it even more amusing.)

For those who think libraries are going the way of the dinosaur — sorry, folks.  Libraries — and books and physical media — will be here for the long term, in my view.

Good afternoon, readers!

To let you know: Academic Search Premier has a new search interface.  The new look is much cleaner and less confusing than the version about which I described last summer.   The content of the search interface remains largely the same, with the addition of being able to search for cited references.

Please take a look at this new interface and let me know what you think of it.  Academic Search Premier is one of my favorite databases to use when doing philosophical research, and I’m hoping that the new interface will encourage others to use it more often.

Good morning, readers!

For those who are interested, here is the list of books that were purchased during the fiscal year 2007-2008.  Most of these books were for courses taught during this past academic year.

As you can see, several of these were replacement copies.  I’ve generated a list of all of the books that I have replaced (in some cases two or three times) or tried to replace since arriving here five years ago.  During that time, we’ve spent nearly $2500 to replace books.

If you are holding on to Robbins’ books, please return them at your earliest convenience.  I realize that books are expensive, and that they are needed for research.  However, once these books are “borrowed,” they very rarely come back, short of the death of the borrower.

I’m thinking of holding a “Library Amnesty Week” this fall, during which time books can be returned, no questions asked.  Hopefully, this will bring some of our lost sheep back into the fold.

Happy Monday, readers!

Just arrived in Robbins last Friday: the latest issues of Inquiry and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.  Here are the Tables of Contents for the respective journals:

Inquiry 51(3) June 2008

• “Wittgenstein, Ethics and Basic Moral Certainty,” Nigel Pleasants
• “Fichte’s Fictions Revisited,” Benjamin D. Crowe
• “Personal Identity as a Task,” Sophia Vasalou
• “The Myth of the Metaphysical Circle: An Analysis of the Contemporary Crisis of the Critique of Metaphysics,” Herbert De Vriese

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77(1) July 2008

Articles

• “The Virtue of Practical Rationality,” Sigrún Svavarsdóttir
• “Internalist Foundationalism and the Problem of the Epistemic Regress,” José L. Zalabardo
• “A Functionalist Theory of Properties,” Ann Whittle
• “Is Locke’s Theory of Knowledge Inconsistent?,” Samuel C. Rickless
• “Why Be an Anti-Individualist?,” Laura Schroeter

Discussions

• “A Hard-line Reply to Pereboom’s Four-Case Manipulation Argument,” Michael McKenna
• “A Hard-line Reply to the Multiple-Case Manipulation Argument,” Derk Pereboom

• “Comments on Woodward, Making Things Happen,” Michael Strevens
• “Response to Strevens,” Jim Woodward

Book Symposium
The Evolution of Morality

• “Preçis of The Evolution of Morality,” Richard Joyce
• “Acquired Moral Truths,” Jesse Prinz
• “Some Questions About The Evolution of Morality,” Stephen Stich
• “Evolution and the Possibility of Moral Realism,” Peter Carruthers, Scott M. James
• “Replies,” Richard Joyce

Review Essay

• “Review Essay on Sami Pihlström’s Solipsism: History, Critique, and Relevance,” Richard Schantz

Critical Notices

• Epistemic Luck, reviewed by Jonathan Kvanvig
• The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche On Overcoming Nihilism, reviewed by Robert Pippin
• Against Coherence: Truth, Probability, and Justification, reviewed by Tomoji Shogenji

Good morning, readers, and happy Friday!

James Sterba (Notre Dame) reviews Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Who Owes What to the Very Poor?, edited by Thomas Pogge, in Ethics & International Affairs 22(2), Summer 2008.

A hat-tip to Bookforum.com for this review.