Invisible Lunacy

Am I the only one to notice? The Conservative Party want to have over a thousand more faith based schools. They want to feed children the poison of religion. Is that part of Jamie's campaign? We already know that Tony Blair supports the odious Vardy foundation, and I thought that by voting Tory I might not only satisfy the general trend of my ethical leanings but also strike a blow against belief in magic. I am severely discommoded. For whom do I vote now?

Humankind

TodayI picked up a package sent to me by my regular chess opponent and sometime correspondent Blaine Myhre. We had discussed his father's poetry and Blaine kindly offered to send me a booklet of said work. I couldn't understand why our postman could not get a 'slim volume' through our letterbox. I have spent most of this evening enjoying the poetry and the accompanying material that Blaine has sent, and forgiving the postman. I am tremendously touched by this insight into other lives, and by the generosity of good people half a world away.

Two Ws of Epistemology

Today I have devoted some time to reading this http://www.helsinki.fi/~tuschano/writings/strange/
I had often wondered why ordinary language philosophy (OLP) had disappeared. Apparently it was to some extent due to this twit Gellner. I have for some time admired the work of Gilbert Ryle. I was, and of course still am, intrigued and confused by Wittgenstein. Peter Strawson has, for me, been outshone by his son, but his work still delights me. What has happened to the legacy of these careful writers? I think I shall study this matter more closely. It seems to me that there is considerable consonance between the approach of the OLP philosophers and my philosophical hero W.V.O.Quine.

Philosophy Again

According to http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=13060

these are my philosophical leanings (hat tip to http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/) :

Existentialism
100%
Hedonism
75%
Utilitarianism
50%
Strong Egoism
50%
Justice (Fairness)
50%
Kantianism
25%
Nihilism
0%
Divine Command
0%
Apathy
0%

I think this is a simplistic but not unreasonable result.

Empiricism

I have had a day light on hard labour, and so I have enjoyed reading some connected articles by Carnap, W.V.O.Quine, A.J.Ayer and ..... Roger Scruton. What, you may wonder, connects Scruton to the three champions of Empiricism? Well, Scruton claims that logical empiricism is refuted because its primary tenet, that all meaningful propositions must be ultimately verifiable, is not itself verifiable. Yes Roger, and I suppose the ontological argument is?

Theidiocy

A pundit on Radio 4 this morning affirmed that the world was waiting to hear about the efficacy of the Pope's medical treatment. This portentious twit was obviously ignorant of the fact that most of us are waiting to hear about said Pontiff's demise. From today's Times...
'Critics will attempt to portray him as a reactionary who refused to budge on issues such as artificial birth control, divorce and married priests. Yet many people, especially those of faith, will revere him as a prophetic voice who stood firm against a tide of secularism that was threatening to consign traditional ethics in the western world to oblivion.'
What are these traditional ethics? Not those of Plato or Aristotle. Not those of Cicero or, dare I say it, Yeshua. They are the ethics of a monolithic organisation the first priority of which has always been to ensure its own continued existence, at any cost. One word will suffice to demonstrate the Catholic church's ethical vacuity - AIDS

Theidiocy

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=97

We have moved past Gilbert Ryle's ghost in the machine. Now, it seems, we need to refute a ghost in the universe, or not. If there is one idea we should grasp from this work it is to ask what evidence available to we beings of clay will convince us of the existence of God? But draw a breath, what propensity occasions conviction? Truth or gullibility?