Rorty and the way things “really are”

The New York Times book review ran a very nice essay by James Ryerson on the recently departed philosopher Richard Rorty. It largely confirmed much of what I wrote in a recent post commenting on Rorty’s reputation as the “bad boy” of philosophy, the one who dared to call into question so many of the [...]

David Brooks on Interconnectedness

The New York Times columnist David Brooks today sounds a little Hegelian. Commenting on Douglas Hofstadter’s account (in his recent book, I Am A Strange Loop) of his connection to his late wife Carol, Brooks is taken by the interconnection that Hofstadter continues to feel with her. Looking at a picture of Carol, Hofstadter recounts, [...]

Lady Bird

I have to say that I am sad that Lady Bird Johnson has passed on. In Austin, where I went to school, she was always a hovering presence, somehow softening the other LBJ’s legacy, monumentally inscribed in that library on the other side of the University of Texas campus. I saw in my lifetime Texas [...]

More on the ESF Rankings

In my last post I expressed concern about the European Science Foundation’s ranking of philosophy journals, a reputational ranking that seems skewed toward a narrow spectrum of philosophy journals. The Feminist Philosophers blog has information on how to weigh in on this ranking.   The blog reports that the ESF welcomes feedback and that it has [...]