I am sad to report that my former professor G.W. Fitch has died. I took metaphysics from him two years ago and introduction to symbolic logic the semester after that. His metaphysics class was one of the best I have ever taken. It provided my with my initial inspiration to become a philosopher. For that, [...]
Entries from January 2007
January 21, 2007
Believing outright v. Believing simpliciter
I have been having a fruitful email conversation with Mark Budolfson about the crux of arguments found in, e.g., my paper “Common Sense, Reliability, and Luminosity in Willamson’s Anti-Luminosity Argument” (Tom Blackson also has a paper on this, so does Stew Cohen and Mark). It basically boils down to this: there seems to be a [...]
January 16, 2007
New Semester (with a major gripe)
Today was the first day of my last semester at ASU. It was interesting, to say the least. In my first class, “Wealth, Distribution, and Poverty,” I was surrounded by… let’s just say typical ASU students. At least they will quickly stop coming to class. Plus, my professor is the type that tries to be [...]
January 15, 2007
Some bizarre ‘arguments’
The last 12 hours have proven to be quite bizarre on some of my blogs. First, Dr. Lynch posts about one of my favorite logicians, Kurt Gödel. He briefly mentions Gödel’s logical ‘proof’ for the existence of God (a modal logic representation of Leibniz’s ontological argument), and how Richard Dawkins does not attempt to refute [...]
January 14, 2007
Book buying spree
This break I have stuck to my tradition of buying too many books that I do not have time to read. They are all now on my ‘to be read’ book shelf. Here is the list:
The Man Who Knew Infiniy by Robert Kanigel
Of Men and Numbers by Jane Muir
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol [...]
January 14, 2007
Some conference info (with a gripe)
It is the season for undergraduate journal and conference submission deadlines. I am not submitting my ‘good’ papers to undergrad journals because I am under the misapprehension that they have a shot at being published in professional journals. I am submitting some of my papers that either 1) I haven’t worked on as much, or [...]
January 12, 2007
Bibliography pain
Today it is ‘cold’ and rainy in Scottsdale. Consequently, I have spent the last 3.5 hours compiling the bibliography for my honors thesis. Needless to say, I am sick of both Sartrean and de Beauvoirian literature and the computer. I definitely need a nap.
Hopefully my thesis is done for good (except for the defense).
January 12, 2007
More on Robert Solomon
I just stumbled upon this touching tribute to Robert Solomon. Reflections like this make me regret not meeting Professor Solomon even more.
January 11, 2007
Respect and Freedom of Expression
In “A Theory of Freedom of Expression,” Scanlon argues that acceptance of the Millian principle is necessary in order for agents to view themselves as fully autonomous. The Millian principle has two principles: 1) freedom of expression cannot be restricted in cases where that expression causes agents to hold false beliefs, and 2) freedom of [...]
