Author: Huenemann

It’s the last week of classes (or so I hear). What are your summer plans? Any goals? Any goofy adventures? Any unbelievably boring prospects? I plan to be reading, writing, reading, writing Nietzsche — woo hoo!!! And riding my bike.

“If I were to start again as an undergraduate, I would major in philosophy,” said Matthew Goldstein, the CUNY chancellor, who majored in mathematics and statistics. “I think that subject is really at the core of just about everything we do. If you study humanities or political systems or sciences in general, philosophy is really the mother ship from which all of these disciplines grow.”

Read the full NYT article here.

Here is Stanley Fish’s latest blog post, in the New York Times, about “deconstructionism,” and whether it has any political consequences. He thinks it does, since (in my own words) it puts up all sorts of warning flags whenever words are used to describe the truth (while giving a free pass to words about words, or words about words about words…..).

Test yourself here.

Here is an article about a recent book on J.S. Mill, which raises interesting points about public debate.

The author of the book thinks Mill would be pleased with various bans on public smoking, which made me think about ASUSU’s recent ban on smoking on USU’s campus. What do people think about this ban? My own view — and yes, I am a pipe smoker! — is that the ban wasn’t really driven by public health concerns. To get harmed by second-hand smoke, the research says that you need to be about 18 inches from the smoker and inhale deeply for a long time. Walking past at a 10-foot distance really doesn’t harm you; sunburn should be a far greater concern. Anyway, I think the ban was lifestyle-driven: mainly, self-righteous LDS students, in conjunction with ill-informed public-health zealots, put the hurt on counter-cultural smokers. Tyranny of the majority, as Mill would say.