The Jockey Club - 2000-2003
2000
Jan 28
Meme Pools, World 3, and Averroes' Vision of Immortality
Derek Gatherer
Zygon Vol. 33 No. 2 June 1998
Ben Evans
Feb 5
Infancy and History
Giorgio Agamben
Feb 12
A Treatise of Human Nature Bk. 2 Part 3 Sec. 3
David Hume
Stuart Pierson
Feb 25
The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Natural
Science
Micheal B. Foster
Mind Vol. XLIII 1934
Paul Sweeney
Mar 3
The Unfinished Twentieth Century
Jonathan Schell
Harper's Magazine January 2000
Mar 10
The Fight Against Totalitarianism
Karl Yaspers
Philosophy and The World
Mar 17
Hiedegger's Philosophy of Mind
Thomas Sheehan
Peter Harris
Mar 24
Question and Answer
R.G. Collingwood
An Autobiography Ch. 5
Paul Sweeney
Mar 31
Postmodernism and Language
Jean-Jacques Lecercle
Postmodernism and Society. Boyne & Rattansi Ed.
Apr 7
Reconstructing Rorty's Ethics: Style's, Languages and
Vocabularies of Moral Reflection
Evan Simpson and Mark Williams
The Ethics of Postmodernism. Madison & Fairbain
Ed.1999
May 19
The Basic Question: Monism or Dualism
Cecil H. Miller
Philosophy of Science Vol. 14 No. 1 Jan 1947
Paul Sweeney
May 26
Reflection: The Subjective Conditions of Understanding
Julian Roberts
The Logic of Reflection 1992
James Bradley
June 2
Siegel's Transcendental Quest: An Examination of Rationality
Redeemed
Walter Okschevsky
Journal of the Canadian Philosophy of Education Society. Vol.2
Winter 1998
Walter Okschevsky
June 9
What the Social Text Affair Does and Does Not Prove
Alan D. Sokal
A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths about
Science. Noretta Koertge Ed.
June 17
The Intelligibility of Eucharistic Doctrine
Micheal Dummett
The Rationality of Religious Belief: Essays in Honour of Basil
Mitchell. 1987
June 23
The Naked Truth
Arthur C. Danto
Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection. Jerrold
Levinson Ed.
July 28
The Form of Inference
Bernard Lonergau
Collected Works Vol. 4
August 11
The Future as Active
Lewis S. Ford
Lewis S. Ford
Author present at time of reading
Emergence - A Systematic View on its Historical Facets
Achim Stephan
Emergence or Reduction: Essays on the Prospects of
Non-Reductive Physicalism
James Bradley
Sep 22
Modern Moral Philosophy
G.E.M. Anscombe
Collected Papers Vol. 3
Sep 29
Universals and Particulars
Bruce Aune
Metaphysics: The Elements
Oct 6
Confirmable and Influential Metaphysics
J.W.N. Watkins
Mind Vol. 61 1958
Paul Sweeney
Oct 13
Hitler and the Tyranny of the Aesthetic
Tobin Siebers
Philosophy and Literature Vol. 24 No.1 April 2000
Paul Sweeney
Oct 20
The Theme: History without Structure or Structure without
History
Alfred Schmidt
An Essay on Hegelian-Marxist and Structuralist Theories of
History
Kevin Heir
Nov 3
Two or Three Things that I Know About Culture
Marshall Sahlins
J. Roy. Anthropology Institute
Stuart Pierson
Nov10
Analyticity and A Prioirity: Beyond Wittgenstein and
Quine.
Hillary Putnam
James Bradley
Nov 17
The Anti-Subjective Hypothesis: Michelle Foucault and the
Death of the Subject
Amy Allen
The Philosophical Forum Vol. Xxxi No. 2 Summer 2000
Paul Sweeney
Nov 24
Atemporal Necessities of Thought; or, How Not to Bury
Philosophy by History
Ross Harrison
From "Reading Kant." Blackwell (pub) 1989.
James Bradley
2nd reading
2001
Jan 19
The Iliad or the Poem of Force
Simone Weil
John Scott
Jan 26
The Book as a Container of Consciousness
William Gass
Kevin Heir
Feb 9
Things Never Seen Before and Thoughts Never Thought: The
Discovery of New Stars in the World Space and the Materialization
of Space. Galileo and Descartes.
Alexandre Koyre
From The Closed World to the Infinite Universe
Paul Sweeney
Feb 16
Philosophy, Civilization, and the Global Ecological Crisis:
The Challenge of Process Metaphysics to Scientific
Materialism.
Arran Gare
Philosophy Today, Fall 2000
Paul Sweeney
March 2
Chapter 1 and 2 from "Voltaire's Bastards:" 1. In which the
Narrator Positions Himself; 2.The Theology of Power.
John Ralston Saul
Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the
West
Paul Sweeney
March 9
Peter Harris
March 16
Abstraction
Alfred N. Whitehead
Stuart Pierson
March 23
The Meaning of Property
C.B. MacPherson
Property
Peter Harris
March 30
Cosmology and the Mind of God
Prof. Em. Jan Van der Veken
Prof. Em. Jan Van der Veken
Author present. Prof. Van der Veken is from the
Institute
of Philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven,
Belgium
April 6th
Plentitude, Possibility, and the Limits of Reason: A Medieval
Arabic Debate on the Metaphysics of Nature.
Taneli Kukkonen.
The Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 64 #4, October
2000
Paul Sweeney
May 18th
The Philosophy of Wonder
The Philosophy of Wonder, Chapter one and two.
Paul Sweeney
May 25th
A Rape in Cyber-Space
Julian Dibbell
http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html
David Thompson
June 1st
The Study of Politics in a University
Micheal Oakshott
Dissecting Rationalism
Walter Okschevsky
June 8th
The Infinite Movement of Self-Conception and its Inconceivable
Finitude: Hegel on Logos and Language
Karin De Boer
Dialogue, Canadian Philosophical Review Vol. XL, No. 1 Winter
2001
Peter Harris
June 15th
The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts
Iris Murdoch
The Sovereignty of Good
James Bradley
June 22nd
Semantic Inferentialism and Logical Expressivism
Robert B. Brandom
Articulating Reasons
Jay Cook
June 26
The Interest of the Sublime
Jean-Francois Lyotard
Of the Sublime: Presence in Question
Barend Kiefte
July 6
Imagining Technology
Patrick Maynard
The Engine of Visualization
July 27
The Concept of the Political, pg. 19-57
Carl Schmitt
Sept 21
Deep Ecology, Deep Pockets, and Deep Problems: A Feminist
Ecosocialist Analysis.
Val Plumwood
Beneath the Surface: Critical Essays in the Philosophy of Deep
Ecology, Katz, Light, Rothenberg Ed., MIT Press, Cambridge Mas.,
2000.
Paul Sweeney
Sept 28
War and Murder and Mr. Truman’s Degree
G. E M Anscombe
Ethics, Politics and Religion
James Bradley
Oct 5
What National Socialism has Done to the Arts
T. Adorno
Hannover Seminar occurred during this time; paper recommended
by visitors from Hannover
Oct 12
On the Partial Existence of Existing and Nonexisting
Objects
Bruno Latour
Biographies of Scientific Objects, Lorrain Daston, ed.
Barend Kiefte
Oct 26
Kit Fine
Neutral Relations
The Philosophical Review, Vol. 109, No. 1, January 2000
Paul Sweeney
Nov 2
The Evolution of Culture
Daniel Dennett
The Monist, Vol. 84, No. 3.
Andrew Latus
Nov 6
Existence as a Real Predicate: A phenomenological
Analysis
Avery M. Fouts
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. LXXV, No.
1.
Paul Sweeney
Nov 16
On the Present in Literature
Ernst Bloch
The Utopian Function of Art and Literature
Barend Kiefte
Nov 23
Being and Time
Wolfhart Pannenberg
Metaphysics and the Idea of God
James Bradley
Nov 30
Kant at Auschwitz
John R. Silber
Proceedings of the Sixth International Kant Congress, Vol.
1
Paul Sweeney
Dec 7
Philosophy and the Idea of Infinity
Levinas
Collected Papers, Alphonso Lingus, Ed.
Barend Kiefte
2002
Jan 25
Things Change
Mark Heller
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LII, No. 3,
Sept. 1992.
Paul Sweeney
Feb 1
European Rationality
Niklas Luhmann
Observations on Modernity, 1998.
Feb 8
Substance Without Substratum
Arda Denkel
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LII, No. 3,
Sept. 1992.
This paper followed Jan 25's paper in the journal; the last
(photocopied) page of the 25's was also the first (photocopied)
page of Feb 8's; thus on Jan 25 it was agreed that this paper would
be of interest.
Feb 15
The End of Philosophy
Cornelius Castoriadis
Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy. Ed. David Ames Curtis
Barend Keifte
Feb 22nd
The Historicity of Truth
Richard Campbell
Truth and Historicity, Chapter 17
Michelle Mahoney
March 1st
What is Truth?
Wolfhan Pannenberg
Basic Questions in Theology, Chapter 1
James Bradley
March 8th
The Truth of the Beautiful in the Critique of Judgement
Marcus Verhaegh
The British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 41, No. 4, Oct.
2001
Paul Sweeney
Macrh 15th
Reconstructing Nature: How the New Informatics are Rewriting
the Environment and Society as Bitspace
Timotrhy W. Luke
Capitlism, Nature, Socialism, Vol. 12, No. 3, Sept. 2001
Craig Cramm
March 22nd 2002
Universality and Difference
Joseph Raz
From, Value, Respect, and Attachment
Robert Piercey
April 5th
Do you Believe in Reality? News from the Trenches of the
Sience Wars
Bruno Latour
Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science
Studies
Barend Kiefte
May 31st 2002
Transitions to a Modern Cosmology: Meister Eckhart and
Nicholas of Cusa on the Intensive Infinite
Elizabeth Brient
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 37, 1999, 576-600
Paul Sweeney
June 7th 2002
Ch. 2: Logic and Conversarion
H.P. Grice
From: Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard, 1999
Jay Cook
June 14th 2002
Analogy as a Rule of Meaning for Religious Language
James F. Ross
From: Aquinas: A Collection of Critical Essays, Anthiny Kenny
Ed., Macmillan, 1969.
James Bradley
June 21st 2002
Ch. 5: Dealing With Death
Margaret Somerville
From: The Ethical Canary, Viking Press, 2000
David Thomspon
June 28th 2002
Linguistic Idealism in Analytic Philosophy of the Twentieth
Century
Michele Marsonet
From: Current Issues in Idealism
Paul Coates and Daniel D. Hutts, Ed., 1996
Craig Cramm
July 5th, 2002
Meaning and Value
Stephen Schiffer
Journal of Philosophy, 1990, p 602-614
Scott Walden
July 12th, 2002
Ch. (2), Identity Over Time and Change of Composition;
and Ch. (3), Qualitative Change and the Doctrine of Temporal
Parts.
E.J. Lowe
A Survey of Metaphysics, Oxford, 2002
David Scott
July 19th, 2002
The Original Notion of Cause
Michael Frede
From: Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic
Epistemology
Edited by Malcom Schofield, M. Burnyeat, J. Barnes.,
Clarendon, Oxford, 1980.
James Bradley
August 2nd 2002
Masochims and the Modern Ethical Ideal (1788-1877): Between
Scientific and Literary Visability
F. Scott Scribner
Literature and Psychology, 2002
Paul Sweeney
Jockey Club Year?
The exact date of the following papers is not known, for the
above list was in part constructed long after the papers were
read.
Date
Title
Author
Notes
Recommended By
June 30
Possibility
Ian hacking
Philosophical Review 1967
The Didactics of Ethics
Immanual Kant
The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue
The Man With the Blue Guitar
Wallace Stevens
Collected Poems 1984
Science and the Humanities: The Case of Turner
Michelle Serres
Substance #83 1997
Ethics and Revolution
Herbert Marcuse
Ethics and Society. Richard T. Degeorge Ed.
Paul Sweeney
The Decline of Utopian Ideas in the West
I. Berlin
The Crooked Timber of Humanity
Stuart Pierson
Atemporal Necessities of Thought; or, How not to Bury
Philosophy by History
Ross Harrison
Reading Kant 1989
James Bradley
An Ontological Argument for Environmental Ethics
Eugene Hargrove
Paul Sweeney
Immanence and The Historical Components of Expression
Gilles Deleuze
Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza 1990
The History of Concepts and the Language of Philosophy
Hans-Georg Gadamer
International Studies in Philosophy Vol. 18 No. 3 1986
James Bradley
Moral Theory and Practice
John Dewey
The Early Works Vol.3
From Circle to Square: Intergity, Vulnerability and
Digitalization
Hub Zwart
(Centre for Ethics, University of Nijmegen)
Author Present
The Problem of Evil
D.Z. Evil
Reason and Religion. Brown Ed. 1977
James Bradley
Historical Change
Micheal Oakshot
On History 1987
Reason and Society
Santayana
The Philosophy of Santayana. I. Edman Ed.
Feb 6
Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher
Education
David F. Noble
Sep 18
Information Technology and the Virtues of Ignorance
Daniel Dennett
Brainchildren
Of Unity and Universality
Richard Matthews
Currency
Mark C. Taylor
Disfiguring: Art, Architecture, Religion. Univesity of Chicago
News, 1992
The Beginning of the Universe and of Time
Richard Swinburne
Can. Journal Of Philosophy Vol. 26 No. 2 June 1996
What is Feminist Epistemology
Sandra Harding
Whose Science? Whose Knowledge
The History of Thinkers and the History of Ideas
Micheal Dummett
Origins of Analytical Philosophy
You Can Have Sex Without Children
G.E.M. Anscombe
Collected Philosophical Papers
James Bradley
Oct 3
Must We Burn Sade?
Simone de Beauvoir
The Marquis De Sade
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
William Blake
On Presupposing
R.G. Collingwood
Metaphysics 1940
James Bradley
March 6
Real Patterns
Daniel Dennett
Journal of Philosophy LXXXVIII, Jan 1991
The Dialect of Solitude
Octavio Paz
Batia Stolar
The Other Mexico
The Reign of Pope Craig Gordon Frank von Cramm
Begins
Sept. 2002, Chucky’s Sessions
Loose theme – Truth
September 13, 2002
“Photography, Vision, and Representation,”
Joel Snyder & Neil Walsh Allen,
Critical Inquiry 2(1975)
Selector: Scott Walden (CUNY) in absentia
– via Light Conference 27th September, 2002.
September 20, 2002
“Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic
Realism,”
Kendall L. Walton
Critical Inquiry Vol. 11, 1984
Selector: Scott Walden (CUNY) in absentia
– via Light Conference 27th September, 2002.
September 27, 2002
Cancelled due to Light Conference Overlap.
October 4, 2002
“The City & the Philosopher: On the Urbanism of
Philosophy,”
Eduardo Mendieta
Philosophy and Geography, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2001
Selector: Ingrid Stefanovic, visiting from the
University of Toronto.
October 11, 2002
Selections from Richard Campbell’s book Truth and
Historicity, Oxford, 1992
Selector: James Bradley
October 18, 2002
“Truth Without Correspondence,”
Ch. 2 from Richard Rorty’s Philosophy and Social
Hope, Penguin, 1999.
Selector: His Eminence Pope C.G.F. von
Cramm
October 25, 2002
“In Defense of a Dogma,”
H.P. Grice & P.F. Strawson
The Philosophical Review, Vol. LXV, no.2
Selector: Richard Mathews
Nov. 1, 2002
“Truth as Regulative Ideal,”
Ron Bontekoe
The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 13, no. 4,
1999.
Selector: Sheldon Hanlon
November 8, 2002
Cancelled due to Philosophy Mixer
November 15, 2002
“Truth in Thomas Aquinas I & II,”
John F. Wippel
The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. XLIII, no. 2, issue no.
170-171
Selection and Intro.: Peter Harris
November 22, 2002
“Rationalism and Empiricism,”
J.L. Mackie
The Australian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 43
(1965)
Selector: David Scott in absentia from UVic,
Victoria B.C.
November 29, 2002
“Choice Without Preference – A Study of the
History and Logic
of the Problem of `Buriden’s Ass’,”
Nicholas Rescher
Kant-Studien
Selector: Calvin Normore (H. Harvey Lecture
visiting from UCLA)
December 6, 2002
Cancelled due to Snowstorm
December 13, 2002
“Making a Civil Society: A New Role for the Human
Sciences,”
Martha Piper
2002 Killam Annual Lecture, Oct. 24, 2002
Selector: P. Trnka
Winter 2003, Snow, Snow and the closing of
Chucky’s till February
Loose Theme - Science
February 28th, 2003
“Triads, Trinities and Rationality,”
James Bradley in the flesh
via Memorial University Philosophy Colloquium
Introduction: Peter Harris
March 7th, 2003
“Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature and Structure of
Science,”
Gerd Buchdahl
Ratio, Vol XV, No. 1, June 1973
Selector: Pope C.G.F. von Cramm
March 14th, 2003
Cancelled due to Snow storm
March 21st, 2003
Cancelled due to Mixer.
March 28th, 2003
“What is Freedom?”
Hannah Arendt
Selector: John Scott
April 4th, 2003
Cancelled due to the Funeral Service for Dr. Barend
Kiefte
April 11, 2003
May 9-Chucky’s
“Percept, Affect and Concept” from What is
Philosophy? by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Suggested by
Peter Harris. Present: Jim Bradley, Peter Harris, David Thompson,
Terry Butler, Dirk Hilbers, Brian Redekopp.
Mostly occupied with trying to interpret the paper. What is an
affect? Are they eternal? Overcoming of the subject. Aestheticism.
The style of Deleuze/Guattari and the failure to communicate.
Contempt for readers?
May 16-Chucky’s
“Nature Appreciation, Science, and Positive
Aethetics” by Glenn Parsons. (British Journal of
Aesthetics, Vol. 42, No. 3, July 2002) Suggested by Dirk
Hilbers. Present: Dirk Hilbers, Chris, Peter Harris, Walter
Okshevsky, Scott Walden, David Thompson, Jim Bradley, Jay Cook, A.
Potrel, Richard Matthews, Brian Redekopp.
Biggest drawback of the paper is that it presupposes
familiarity with “scientific cognitivism.” Dubious
presupposition of positive aethetics (nature is always beautiful).
What is the nature of aesthetic perception? How can grasping
something conceptually, as in math and science, be beautiful? Math
and mysticism. How does this beauty differ from perceptual beauty?
Order in nature vs. order in the arts. The nature of order,
goodness and harmony. Evil. The concept of “richness”
as an aesthetic standard.
May 23-Home of Jim Bradley
“The Relevance of Nicolai Hartmann’s Musical
Aesthetics” by Gabor Csepregi (Axiomathes 2001; 12:
339-354) Suggested by Craig Cramm. Present: Arnold Bennett, Thomas
(cellist, from music dept.), Jay Cook, Jim Bradley, Dan Ferguson,
Sean McGrath, Peter Harris, Richard Matthews, Scott Walden, Brian
Redekopp.
McGrath: “Apollonian prejudice” in the piece,
subordination of the primitive, of feeling, in Hartmann’s
approach to music. Rock (primitive, raw, immediate) vs. classical
(intellectual) music. (McGrath vs. Thomas) Different emotional
responses or better emotional responses involved in each?
Repetition in rock. Boring? Elitism. A turn to the primitive
expressed in modern music? Harris: what is “spiritual
content”? Bradley: metaphysics expressed in the paper.
Platonism vs. Schopenhauerianism. Bennett: false dichotomy between
sensuous and formal—in reality the “intellectual”
amounts to a new, more sophisticated way of feeling and hearing.
Harris, Bradley: the concept of play in Hartmann and Kant’s
notion of free play of imagination. (Matthews: Hartmann was a
neo-Kantian). Is there a moral content to the apprehension of
beauty? (Kant, critique of judgment, section 59) Scott: we need to
be pluralists about music. Different standards per genre.
“Sophistication” should not be applied as a blanket
criterion.
May 30-Home of Jim Bradley
“The Sovereignty of Good over Other Concepts” by
Iris Murdoch (from The Sovereignty of Good). Suggested by
Jim Bradley. Present: Jim Bradley, Peter Harris, Arnold Bennett,
David Thompson, Jay Cook.
June 6-Chucky’s
“Real Patterns” by Daniel Dennett, from
Brainchildren. Suggested by Don Ross. Guests:
“Aardvarks”: Don Ross (University of Cape Town), James
Ladyman (University of Bristol), David Spurrett (University of
Natal). Also present: Anna Mudde, Arnold Bennett, David Thompson,
Peter Harris, Jim Bradley, Jill Cumby, Andrew Latus, Darren, Scott
Walden, Michelle Mahoney, Leah Anderson, Chris Dennis, Brian
Redekopp, James (? undergrad).
The nature of beliefs. Mainly a debate between specialists:
Aardvarks, David Thompson, Scott Walden.
June 13-Home of David Thompson
“Déjà vu All Over Again: How
Danto’s Aesthetics Recapitulates the Philosophy of
Mind” by Jerry Fodor, in Danto and His Critics; ed.
Mark Rollins. Suggested by Scott Walden. Present: David Thompson,
Arnold Bennett, Chris Dennis, Sean McGrath, Brian Redekopp, Douglas
Naimer, Dan Ferguson, Scott Walden, Darren.
Big question: is art really best described in terms of
communication? Issues of interpretation: primary and secondary
intentions and Grice’s reflexive condition of communication.
Should the experience of art be interpreted as communication
between subjects, or does the artwork take precedence, channelling
through subjects? Is Fodor’s “virtual intention”
an ad hoc attempt to escape the consequences of his own
Cartesian position?
June 20-The Magic Wok
“Art and Theory Between Experience and Practice”
by Richard Shusterman, in Pragmatist Aesthetics. Suggested
by Dan Ferguson.
June 27-Home of David Thompson
“Can Fictional Narratives Be True?” by Paul
Ricoeur, in Analecta Husserliana, Vol. XIV, 3-19. Suggested
by Brian Redekopp. Present: Sean McGrath, Jim Bradley, John Scott,
Arnold Bennett, Peter Harris, Richard Matthews, Heidi, Douglas
Naimer, Darren Hynes, Tamas Tobozy, Brian Redekopp.
Question of whether Ricoer thinks history refers to facts, and
general question of whether history refers to facts. Basic
ontological question of whether facts or interpretation ground
reality, and whether they can co-exist. Attempt to distinguish
fiction from history.
July 4-House of Brian Redekopp and Dirk Hilbers
“Literature and the Moral Imagination” by Martha
Nussbaum. Suggested by Brian Redekopp. Present: Dirk Hilbers, Brian
Redekopp, David Thompson, Richard Matthews, Heidi, Chris Dennis,
Peter Harris, Walter Okshevsky, Tamas Tobozy.
The role of particularity in ethics—overblown? Is there
really such a thing as a particular situation? Or are all
situations types of situations? The possibility of possessing
insight and doing evil all the same. Aristotle’s ethics and
the concept of morality.
July 11-Home of Chris Dennis
“Kant and the Sublime” by Louis Roy, from
Transcendent Experience: Phenomenology and Critique.
Suggested by Craig Cramm. Present: Chris Dennis, Tamas Tobozy,
Brian Redekopp, Dirk Hilbers, Walter Okshevsky, David Thompson,
Arnold Bennett, Peter Harris, Darren Hynes, Douglas Naimer.
The concept (?) of space in Kant. Question of
Euclidian/non-Euclidean geometry. Clarification of Kant’s
concepts of intuition, understanding, reason, imagination in order
to get at doctrine of the sublime.
July 18-Home of Walter Okshevsky
“Art and Imitation” by Hans-Georg Gadamer, from
The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays. Suggested
by Sean McGrath and Brian Redekopp. Present: Sean McGrath, Chris
Dennis, John Scott, David Thompson, Peter Harris, Walter Okshevsky,
Brian Redekopp, Arnold Bennett, Scott Walden, Douglas Naimer.
The concept of a “thing”—particularity,
novelty. Question of the importance of the original work of art vs.
reproductions. What Gadamer means by order, and why he draws on
Pythagoras. Order vs. ratio in Pythagoras.
July 25-Home of Walter Okshevsky
“Who’s Afraid of Determinism?” by
Christopher Taylor and Daniel Dennett, from The Oxford Handbook
of Free Will; ed. Robert Kane (Oxford University Press, 2002).
Suggested by David Thompson. Present: David Thompson, Walter
Okshevsky, Peter Harris, Jim Bradley, Brian Redekopp, Dirk Hilbers,
Arthur Sullivan, Jennifer Flynn, Douglas Naimer, Chris
Dennis.
Does the article concern metaphysics, or linguistic analysis?
The argument is rooted in an equivocation on two notions of
possibility: logical possibility of an event’s occurring (on
this level, determinism rules) vs. the capacity of a thing (freedom
pertains to this level).
August 1-Home of Jim Bradley
“Truth in Beauty in Scientific Reason” by James
McAllister (Synthese 78 (1989), 25-51). Suggested by Brian
Redekopp. Present: Jim Bradley, Peter Harris, Darren Hynes, Chris
Dennis, David Thompson, Brian Redekopp, Dirk Hilbers, Walter
Okshevsky, Richard Matthews, Steve _____, Steve ______.
Fundamental problem is McAllister’s attempt to draw an
absolute distinction between criteria of truth and criteria of
beauty, with the result that his criteria of beauty could just as
easily be criteria of truth, and vice versa. Beauty is subordinated
to truth by thinking of truth as objective and beauty as wholly
subjective and psychological. But what is beauty? No answer.
