Writer's Block: Roll the dice

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With my luck I would categorically say NOWT m'lad! Not one lucky number, in fact all mine are unlucky numbers.

Writer's Block: Bare necessities

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Food,drink and sleep followed by love, intelligence and music.

What To Drink

From Philosophy Now -

3. What to Drink

Anything you like. But to be frank, there’s an overwhelming preference amongst philosophers for red wine and coffee. There’s a famous Latin phrase ‘in vino veritas’, attributed to the Roman writer Pliny the Elder. It means ‘in wine is truth’. He meant that someone deep in their cups is likely to reveal their true nature. The Australian philosopher John Bigelow once quipped ‘in caffeina veritas’ – in caffeine is truth. Certainly, I find that good coffee gets my cognitive juices flowing.

Well with that recommendation a bottle of vino and a coffee please!

What To Wear

From Ian Ravenscroft, Philosophy Now -

1. What to Wear

Philosophers rarely get worked up about clothing. Clothes can be a source of aesthetic pleasure, and few philosophers are adamantly opposed to pleasure. (They may object to pleasures too dearly bought, and they might object to the elevation of pleasure above other values such as justice, but they rarely find fault with pleasure properly bought and valued.) However, there are clothing choices which are at odds with the philosophical spirit. Philosophy is essentially an anti-authoritarian business, or at least, philosophy acknowledges only the authorities of reason, argument and evidence. The dubious authorities of crowd, religion, and state, with their tendencies to demand blind obedience, are at odds with the philosophical endeavour. It is striking how many philosophers, from Socrates to Abelard to Russell, had trouble with – and troubled – the worldly authorities.

One of the intriguing things about authorities and authoritarian regimes is their fascination with uniforms and playing dress-up. From the fascist’s brown shirt to the bishop’s purple cassock, authorities have a fetishistic attraction to the tailor and milliner. Some uniforms, for example the footballer’s jersey, serve the practical function of making it easier to adopt certain roles. These cases aside, if you find yourself tempted to don a uniform, or worse, impose one on others, you might like to reconsider your philosophical credentials.

What To Read (Philosophically)

From the same source -

4. What to Read

To be a good philosopher you need to read a lot of good philosophy. Anders Eriksson, an expert on becoming an expert, has estimated that you need around 10,000 hours of practice to become a genuine expert in most fields. In philosophy, practicing includes (but isn’t exhausted by) interacting with great philosophical minds. And the best way to do that – for many philosophers the only way – is by reading their books.

Sometimes what you need to know is buried in an especially dull book, in which case you just have to grit your teeth and plough through. Much of the time, though, it’s more useful to be a bit of a magpie. Read the things that capture your attention. If a philosophy book turns out to be dull or irrelevant, or just not very good, put it down and find something better to read.

Over the last twenty years a large number of philosophical dictionaries, handbooks and companions/study guides have sprang up. These can be both incredibly useful and very entertaining. Three of my favourites are the Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Mind edited by Samuel Guttenplan; the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy by Simon Blackburn; and the on-line Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward Zalta. Indulge yourself.

What To Think About in Philosophy

When I first studied the subject way back on the OU Arts Foundation course I was told that philosophy was concerned with Truth, Beauty and the Good. This now strikes me as absurdly unhelpful. It’s too constricting. There are very few intellectual endeavours into which the philosopher cannot productively stick her nose. All the natural and social sciences provide fertile ground for philosophy; as do the arts, literature, politics, history and current affairs. Here is a somewhat eclectic list drawn from my own somewhat eclectic recent reading: Kim Sterelny interacts fruitfully with evolutionary biology and cognitive science in his Thought in a Hostile World; Susan Hurley says some important things about the origins of violent behaviour in her paper ‘Imitation, Media Violence, and Freedom of Speech’; Martha Nussbaum draws attention to the normative function of literature in her Poetic Justice; and Jonathan Glover has written Humanity, a remarkable moral history of the twentieth century.

There are philosophers who refuse to engage with scientific research which bears on their field of interest. The outcome of such singularity of focus (or blinkered thinking) is sometimes comic, and occasionally tragic, but it’s rarely profound. There are also philosophers so overwhelmed by the power of science that they deride their own discipline. This can lead to comedy or tragedy too. It rarely leads to anything more valuable than the science which it apes.

I am often surprised what a really good philosopher can do with a topic which has not previously been seen as a suitable object of philosophical reflection. Harry Frankfurt’s essay On Bullshit is a beautiful example. One way to think of this essay is as a penetrating discussion of a topic not found in Plato, Mill or Nietzsche. But in another way, On Bullshit shows that someone of Frankfurt’s calibre can distil a philosophical tradition into a few thousand words – after all, the history of philosophy is a history of opposition to bullshit. Socrates, for example, had a keen nose for bullshit, and little patience with bullshitters: that is to say, he relentlessly exposed fools who presented themselves as knowledgeable authorities (that word again). According to one story, Socrates accepted the Delphic Oracle’s pronouncement that he was the wisest of men only after he realized that his wisdom consisted in appreciating the depth of his ignorance.

Gearing Up

Today has been a quiet one. Did a bit down the library this morning. Watched some animated films by the Quay Brothers this evening.

Gearing up the loins for the Dover Castle New Year gig with music by Ali's new band The Remedy, and I think Spot may be singing some songs too!

My next Brillo gig will be on the 13th at the usual venue The Northern Lights with a slightly more dubby reggae feel to the proceedings. Sorting out some music for it.