I have added a link to the blogroll (on the right of this page) to the USU Religious Studies website. Especially of note on that site is the “News” page, which tells of upcoming lectures and events. Check it out!
Category: Happenings
T-shirts are in
and they sure are spiffy. You can stop in at Main 208 to get yours, or stop by the Philosophy table at the Day on the Quad on Wednesday, August 29th. They are free for majors, $5 for minors, and $10 for anyone else.
T-shirts on the way!
At the beginning of the fall term, we’ll have “Philosophy” t-shirts available! They will look pretty cool, and come in 3 different colors. And they’ll only be $5.
If you just can’t wait for a t-shirt, or if you want a hoodie or mug or messenger bag, we have set up a store at this website.
Philosophy iLecture
USU is in the process of putting together some brief “iLectures” for interested prospective students (and anyone else). So I have put together one on Philosophy, which you can read here if you want:
Here’s the final paragraph, so you can better determine if you’re interested:
“But more than all that: philosophy, as the love of wisdom, is the intelligent and honest attempt to become, as Aristotle might have put it, a ‘professional human being,’ which is a human being who has worked out his or her moral obligations and theoretical beliefs and integrated them into an honorable, well-balanced life. For in the final analysis, none of us wants to have lived a mistake; nobody wants to regret how they have lived. We want to live the best possible life, given who we are and what we face. And that is why we are all interested in wisdom. It is the science of figuring out how to live as a fully human being.”
(I’ll post a link to the actual iLecture once it’s recorded and posted.)
Also: for anyone interested in listening to other philosophers discuss interesting topics, check out the podcasts available here on “Philosophy Bites.” It’s an interesting set of topics, discussed by well-known professional philosophers, and the series is growing increasingly popular in the set of educational podcasts.
Richard Rorty (1931-2007)
Richard Rorty, a very influential philosopher, who tried to connect philosophy’s concerns with other concerns across the academy, died recently. His obituary can be found here.
I’m not sure how many readers of this blog have read any of Rorty’s works, but I’d be interested in anyone’s opinion as to their worth. I myself think he had a real talent at writing clear and compelling prose, and finding creative and controversial perspectives. But I think usually he was wrong, and usually misrepresented the philosophers he described.
For more discussion of Rorty, see the entry on Brian Leiter’s webapge, on the blogroll to the right.
USUPhilosophy 