GIGO or the new rankings of philosophy journals

It was a philosopher, Charles Babbage, who first coined the term “garbage in, garbage out,” a term invaluable in understanding that computers only work as well as what is plugged into them. And now the term is coming back full circle to philosophy, at least if one wants to make sense of the latest misbegotten [...]

The Bad Boy of Philosophy

Last Friday, at age 75, Richard Rorty died. Yesterday both the New York Times and the Washington Post ran nice obituaries, highlighting his youth in a socialist family and his adulthood as a renegade philosopher who’d splashily divorced analytic philosophy in order to embrace American pragmatism. The break-up began in the 60s. “He [...]

Citizen Journalism

Dan Gillmor is doing good work with his new Center for Citizen Media. This is one of the directions that civically-minded media has gone in the past few years. New technologies seem to put the citizen in the driver’s seat. But what does this mean for the profession of journalism? What [...]

Political Crimes

I love this excerpt from Rajeev Barghava’s essay on truth commissions. He explains the difference between a political cirme an an everyday crime. A political crime aims to undermine someone’s sense of or title as a member of a political community, as someone worth hearing and heading.  Such seems to be at work in instances [...]

Democracy and Higher Ed

Just back from a very intense three-day meeting on higher ed and democracy.  We — theorists and convenors of deliberative democracy — were brainstorming a network that would focus the academy’s attention on deliberative democracy.  To turn a phrase of the Kettering Foundation, “What kind of higher education does a public need in order for [...]

Deliberation & Social Justice

I’m in Portsmouth, NH, for a few days, meeting with a group convened by the University of New Hampshire. Among us are professors, theorists, and practitioners of deliberative democracy. Most everyone here is also deeply concerned about diversity, inclusiveness, and social justice. I sense a bit of tension between concern for democracy and concern [...]

Paris Hilton Starts Jail Time and other news…

Well, I know it must be important that Paris starts jail time, but I’m more caught up in less topical news: like, what’s happening to the reputation of democracy since the United States’ war in Iraq.
My cabbie yesterday morning, a philosopher named Chris from Ghana who drives a cab for a living, noted that not [...]