Robbins Library Notes

Good morning, readers!

Here are the latest podcasts from Philosophy Bites.  These podcasts were recorded from mid-August 2008 to mid-October 2008:

• Aaron Ridley on Nietzsche on Art and Truth
• M. M. McCabe on Socratic Method
• Ray Monk on Philosophy and Biography
• Barry C. Smith on Neuroscience
• Adrian Moore on Kant’s Metaphysics
• Peter Cave on Paradoxes
• Christopher Janaway on Nietzsche on Morality
• Anthony Appiah on Experiments in Ethics
• Roger Crisp on Virtue

Just a reminder that I will be out tomorrow.  See you on Monday!

Good morning, readers!

To get us started this week, here are the latest podcasts from Philosophy Bites:

• Adrian Moore on Kant’s Metaphysics
• Barry C. Smith on Neuroscience
• Ray Monk on Philosophy and Biography
• M.M. McCabe on Socratic Method
• Aaron Ridley on Nietzsche on Art and Truth

Enjoy!

At right: Cy Young baseball card, 1911; a public domain image from the Library of Congress

Opening day for baseball season is less than two weeks away. Thus, it seems appropriate to include Owen Fiss’ introduction and inclusion of a letter by John Rawls on baseball. (The text of the letter, along with a PDF facsimile of the original, can be found in the Boston Review.)

In this letter, Rawls recounts a conversation that he had with the legal scholar, Harry Kalven, in which Kalven speaks about why baseball is the best of all games. It is an amazing letter to read. Furthermore, as Fiss notes in his introduction, how both Rawls and Kalven used baseball examples to make technical points in some of their work.

And now, for something completely different – In an earlier post, I wrote about philosophical autobiography. Continuing the thread of the idea in that post, I include, for your viewing pleasure today, Alain Badiou’s fascinating discussion of philosophy as biography as found in the most recent issue of The Symptom.

A hat-tip to Bookforum.com for these articles.

Good afternoon! I don’t have much to write about this week, so I will offer this interesting article that appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education a few years ago.

The Unexamined Life May Be Your Own
Carlin Romano
Chronicle of Higher Education
April 9, 2004

Romano writes on philosophical autobiography and why it matters in the practice of philosophy, regardless of philosophical orientation or bent. (For my readers of an analytic bent, do not cringe: rest assured that I am not leading you down the murky and muddy path of deconstructionism.)

Just a reminder that I will be away for the Thanksgiving holiday starting tomorrow, and returning on Monday 26 November 2007, so I won’t be posting for the next several days. Enjoy your turkey!