Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Diversity

I am struck by how bloggers are so very inter-deferential-referential. Why should you read my comments if all I do is refer you to someone more learned or well known or generally sparkly? Why read my blog at all if I have nothing original, or at least unusual, to say? Good question. Well here is a list of things, excluding my job, thatI just might know something useful about:
Wine
Tropical freshwater fish, especially cichlids
Chess (although from a pragmatic rather than 'expert' perspective)
Beer
Philosophy
Women - no, that's a joke
Humour - obviously also a joke
The human condition....

What was that last one? Well it boils down (a rather smelly metaphor, don't you think?) to that wonderful phrase "a professional person". I am a professional person. I have been practising for 21.. 46 years. With my experience, and continuing professional development, I should be considered not only professional but chartered, incorporated, enfellowed and a generally good egg. Answers on a postcard please. No job too small.

Monday, May 16, 2005

More on Two Dogmas

Sad, I know, but I have been reading Quine's paper http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html again. There is so much in it to think about. I am not convinced by the argument that the analytic/synthetic distinction is false in all cases. OK, so Quine quotes the difficult cases and asks for a definition of analytic that will always work. I think he is exploiting a false dichotomy. That all bachelors are unmarried men is certainly analytic, in that it is true by definition in our world, which, given we are in our world, is the only one that matters. Of course there is an element of choosing our axioms here, but, as this excellent paper points out, http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Philosophy/axioms/axioms/axioms.html , there always is.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Church of the Holy Chav

From today's Times:

Bluewater’s management emphasises that it will be implementing the policy sensitively. “It will be up to staff to decide if people have to remove their caps or hoods or be asked to leave the premises. It is about groups of people that make others feel threatened, not ordinary shoppers,” a spokeswoman said. People wearing headgear for religious reasons were not affected, she added.

Oh, so that's alright then. I'll just pull on my Burberry baseball cap and black hoody and rush down there to tell them about the Church of the Holy Chav, and if anybody gets shirty I might ask them why they don't eject those ladies in the mobile tents.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Transcendence

OK.. what does this word mean? It has plagued me since the early seventies, through Beatles music, Maharishis and mycologically fuelled cognitions. Now I read philosophy, and again I meet this word. Philosophers of religion and ethics and aesthetics talk about transcendence. So what is transcendent? That which is beyond the ken of humanity? I will grant my reader the wit to take my point without further ranting.

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Manchester Cat Club Show

All in all, a pretty good day out yesterday. Ptolemy collected an adequate number of rosettes to salve his pride. We met some lovely people and found Urmiston to be quite a pleasant place, if somewhat damp. Topaz seems to be the victim of a conspiracy. Her successes at Notts and Derby have, for some reason unknown, failed to appear in 'Our Cats' and she was completely outshone by a litter sister of whose existence we were completely ignorant until yesterday. We are, to say the least, bemused. This may have been our fault for allowing Topaz to gallop around the house all night and eat a heavy breakfast. It may also be due to the personal preferences of one Mr.Fox. Or it may be that Topaz is just not as close to the breed standard as we had been led to hope.