A little browsing. First, following up on my summary of Dr. Vitz’s article “Pyschology in Recovery“, the article is now on line here.
I found several other articles that related to things I have been thinking and writing about. The common threads are rationalism & the Enlightenment, religion, and faith. I haven’t worked out what I want to say about them and I wanted to park the links.
Category: Sharp Stick
Da Vinci Decoded
The History Channel in Canada broadcast “The Real Da Vinci Code” as a two hour show last night (March 23/05). Actor, journalist and politician Tony Robinson was the narrator and he brought a comic and sarcastic presence, honed in his appearances as Baldrick in Rowan Atkinson’s “Blackadder” shows, to his role as debunker of modern myths.
Arts & Letters Daily
I added a site to my aggregator after finding this Guardian Article through Butterflies and Wheels News.
The site is Arts & Letters Daily. I am enjoying it for all of the reasons mentioned in the Guardian article – and especially for wide interests, good writing and fidelity to logic and reality.
Ten Philosophical Mistakes
Here’s another philosophy primer by Mortimer J. Adler, brief, well-organized and to the point. He wrote “Ten Philosophical Mistakes” in 1985. He was trying to explain why he had identified himself with Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas in his autobiography. He identifies some key ideas associated with a series of philosophers, including Hobbes, Locke, Descartes, Hume, Kant and criticizes their failings. His own ideas on these points go back in some instances to Aristotle and Aquinas, but in other instances he relies on modern criticism of the thinkers of the Enlightenment and the early modern era.
Cleansing
There was an ad in the first section of today’s Free Press (Sat. March 5/05) for herbal and fiber “cleansing” products. It talked about getting rid of toxins by 7 cleansing channels – didn’t say which channels. The two channels that get the most attention in the marketplace are colon (aka bowel or large intestine) and kidney/bladder. Google “cleansing” or “cleansing toxins” and see what the engine drags from the dregs of the Web.
Fakir on Tour
Last week the Free Press was running ads for Deepak Chopra’s visit to Winnipeg among the movie ads in the entertainment section. The show is called “An Evening with Deepak Chopra”, it’s at the Concert Hall on April 21, and ticket prices are from $45.00 to $150.00. Chopra is a best-selling author, an inspirational speaker, and he is associated with a luxury retreat spa. This article by Guardian columnist and author Francis Wheen estimated his income at $20 million a year, including $8 million from the retreat center.
On Bullshit
In Michael Lynch’s book about Truth, which I mentioned back here, he mentions Harry Frankfurt’s paper “On Bullshit”. It has just been printed as a very short book. The paper was available on line here and elsewhere, but Frankfurt’s publisher – the Princeton University Press – has been asserting copyright. [Updated March 16/05; it was available when I wrote this post but taken down]. Frankfurt is going to be on The Daily Show. Blog news about that at Crooked Timber.
It’s a short paper – it would come to about 25 pages of a larger font, generously spaced, and it’s a nice piece of writing. It discusses truth and bullshit in ordinary talk, advertising, and politics. Bullshit is what we hear from people who don’t care about the truth. Liars care about the truth – they say things they know aren’t true. Bullshitters don’t care about the truth. It’s not that they are careless about their story – their presentation may be elaborate, beautiful, and even true in some measure. But the bullshitter isn’t trying to tell the truth. The bullshitter is a story-teller. Bullshitters believe in themselves, sincerely. They want you to listen to them and like them, and they want you to believe them. The problem is that their stories aren’t reliable.
It’s a nice piece of work, which has inspired a lot of thought.
[Update/addendum. In 2022, after the Donald Trump presidency had acquainted people with the term “fake news” as a synonym for bullshit, I read the article The Varieties of Bullshit by Peter Ludlow (who has published online under the name E.J. Spode).
Truth in Religion
I picked out Truth in Religion, The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth by Mortimer J. Adler (see previous post)- as I was browsing at the library. It was a quick and worthwhile piece of reading.
Great Ideas
In the last couple of weeks I have been reading some books by Mortimer J. Adler, a teacher and writer with a broad grasp of the history of philosophy, and an advocate of living the examined life through understanding the “Great Ideas“.
Moses and the Nice Commandments
British broadcast journalist Jon Snow of TV4 has run a poll to have Britons vote on a modern restatement of the 10 commandments. The new list seems to run to 20 and includes try your best, be honest, be true to yourself, enjoy life, nothing in excess, live within your means, appreciate what you have, never be violent, never kill, be true to your god, enjoy life (sex, drugs, chocolate??) and protect the environment (put the toilet seat down, flush/don’t flush???). Although they sound bland, it isn’t a bad set of moral principles, if we knew what they all really meant. There is a marked underemphasis on worship and fidelity to belief, and some emphasis on being nice. Sweet waffles for principles.