Category: Uncategorized

Julian Baggini is an excellent writer on philosophy for nonspecialists. His latest book explores what human freedom is, and whether it is compatible with neural determinism. From the review –

The book’s central argument is that while it may be true that we could not in any given circumstance have acted otherwise, that is an impoverished definition of freedom and by no means the same as saying we have no freedom to choose. Our choices may be rooted in our physiology, our genetic makeup, but out of these arises something that was once called “character”, and it is this that is the final arbiter on choice.

The rest is here.

Treating someone as a person therefore means recognizing and responding to someone as he is. And that recognition is narrative; the person is represented as a web of stories. This social and moral practice of personhood is a dynamic process that develops itself over time, as we are not frozen in our identities. We change our own first-person stories over time, as do others, who change the stories of how they see us.

Read the whole review of Hilde Lindemann’s Holding and Letting Go here.

Mariam Thalos, from the University of Utah, will present a talk entitled: “Precaution: decision in the context of potential future ‘catastrophe'”. It’s a perfect topic for finals week (har, har, har).

Her talk is this coming Monday (4/27), 12-1, in Family Life 307. All are welcome!

There’s an interesting post on the Journal of the History of Ideas blog about Jerome’s own chronology of the world, and how it reflected the uncertainty of his times. And the Oxford University Press offers a review of one of their recent books about the life of Jerome – excerpt:

But is there a way to combine Dürer’s idealised picture of Jerome with the one outlined by Kelly? Andrew Cain’s monograph, The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity, has taught us how to read Jerome’s often immodest and immoderate statements. They are in fact part of a deliberate strategy to advertise his abilities as a writer and his authority as an ascetic scholar as widely as possible. Cain shows that, for Jerome, it was an essential necessity to attract patrons and sponsors if he wanted to continue his monastic life. He had little wealth of his own and even the vast resources of his friend Paula dried up in the process of supporting Jerome and maintaining the Bethlehem monastery they had founded together. Jerome’s outrageous provocations can be seen as part of a wider effort to draw attention to himself and his projects. It appears that there were just enough people at the time with an interest–political or otherwise–in feeding this particular type of troll.