My neighbor has put makeup on me and lent me a dresss and high heels -we are going out dancing tonight!!  :-)

Şiir

Mi vecina me ha pintado la cara y me prestó un vestido y zapatos de alto tacones -nos vamos a bailar esta noche!!   Xiir  :-)

I don’t know whether to be amused or appalled at the ignorance and arrogance exhibited by some of LiveJournal’s familiar philosophers as of late.

I suppose it all began when zentiger made the claim that Aquinas’s Five Ways are “bullshit,” but it wasn’t until later I realized the extent of the problem.

I was amazed when i_am_lane said he couldn’t think of any well-known virtue ethicist but Aristotle. Seriously? What about Thomas Aquinas and Alasdair MacIntyre? Come to think of it, how about Plato, the Stoics generally and Epictetus in particular, and arguably Epicurus as well? Less famous but still influential—yes, even within that intellectual failure known as analytic philosophy—is Philippa Foot.

vox_diabolica, in the same thread, is to be commended for correcting i_am_lane’s ignorance by naming G. E. M. Anscombe as a virtue ethicist, but he then quickly goes on to prove his own ignorance in claiming that Aquinas is a deontologist. (This is almost as moronic as his claim, in the original post, that virtue ethics involves “no ontological commitments,” for it clearly does presuppose a commitment to the existence of virtues and to an adequate subject of those virtues.) This claim is either trivially true or resoundingly false depending on how one understands deontology and classifies individual moral philosophers. More to the point, it is irrelevant to Aquinas’s clear embracement of virtue ethics. Anyone with an even passing familiarity with Aquinas would know that he wrote extensively on the virtues (and corresponding vices) in his Summa Theologiae (in particular, I-II.55-67 and II-II.1-170), and that these are nearer to the center of his ethics than his notion of duty (which must be understood in connection with the virtue of justice).

In a later thread to the same post, vox_diabolica multiplies statements evidencing his ignorance—this time not only with respect to Aquinas’s ethics, but also to what constitute the major normative branches in moral philosophy. For instance, he seems to think the “is–ought fallacy” applies to Aquinas’s ethics, whereas Aquinas’s doctrine of the convertability of being with goodness and his Aristotelian understanding of practical reason insure that it does not. Moreover, there is even reason to question whether the fallacy even is a fallacy. See, for example, John Searle’s “How to Derive ‘Ought’ from ‘Is’,” Philosophical Review 73 (1964): 43-58. Also, vox_diabolica claims that natural law theory is not a major system of normative ethics. I shall not reiterate my initial response to this absurd claim, but take careful note: Although one does find in Aquinas the most thorough pre-modern presentation of natural law theory, the roots of natural law sink as deep as the soil of Plato and Aristotle. And the fact that the virtue theory of both of these thinkers depends on their teleonomic “philosophical anthropology”—i.e., their analysis of human nature in terms of function and telos—might further enlighten us as to the dependence of the former on the latter.

More recently, i_am_lane’s ignorance of Aquinas’s important distinction between natural law and human law (and the corresponding distinction between natural right and positive right) has materialized. But zentiger’s consequent remarks really take the cake. zentiger disingenuously accuses me of “shut[ting] down conversations by asserting ‘intellectual superiority’.” This is especially ironic given his red herring track record. He also claims that I like to “namedrop,” as if it is inappropriate to point in the direction of thinkers of whom one should be aware or give them their due credit. But what is perhaps most annoying is not the ridiculous frequency with which zentiger misrepresents me, my arguments, etc., but his apparently profound ignorance of philosophers outside the short-sighted tradition of the analytics. As a Kierkegaardian, a Thomist, and a semiotician, I have many objections to Anglo-American analytic philosophy. But my greatest complaint against many of the practitioners of that tradition is their marriage of intellectual myopia to an almost incredible hubris. Not only is zentiger ignorant of both the Thomistic and semiotic traditions (so much so that he once held the two to be identical), he is proud of this ignorance. And yet he also wishes to seem knowledgeable, so he makes pronouncements on schools and fields of inquiry of which his personal knowledge is equivalent to a pea under a thimble.

Incidentally, I would respond to zentiger’s ignorance concerning the defensibleness of the Five Ways, but vox_diabolica has rejected my convert_me post on Aquinas’s First Way and once again arbitrarily—and quite predictably—banned me from convert_me and atheist_fail. He is too pig-headed to take seriously my criticisms of his governance of convert_me. And since he has, as yet, received no serious complaints over my bans, I am out of the picture for a time. If anyone wants to stand up to the wanna-be Machiavellian Monad, this is the place to do it. vox_diabolica claims an interest in virtue ethics, but it is easy to see that it is purely academic in nature. It would seem the only way to get through to him is through strength in numbers, as truth does not seem to interest him. If you are a member of the community, I encourage you to say something. Galactus approaches. Uatu is watching. The time is near.

As for what to do about the general ignorance that these e-philosophers perpetuate, I cannot say. But Charles Peirce’s maxim remains my lodestar: Do not block the path of inquiry!

My good friend Jessica here at Yale (she graduated after my first year, but stayed in New Haven) interviewed Matisyahu for an article in Relevant magazine. I think the result is very worth reading, if you are at all interested in his (and her) utter awesomeness.
http://www.jessicamisener.com/matisyahu.pdf

Hoy conseguí posada en Merida en una colonia muy lindo en el norte de la ciudad.  Estoy muy cansada, pero muy muy agradecida a mis amigos y familia quien me invitaron en  (Marcia and Joe and Elaine sobre todo por haber me invitado a quedarme
cuando quiero en sus casas, mis queridos amigos lindos)
  y a Don Chebo quien me decia en Quintana Roo que "nadie te està sacando de esta casa, puedes quedarte..."  -aunque me gustaria quedarme con todos mis lindos amigos, mejor que me voy a una ciudad donde puedo funcionar mejor con mejor transporte, museos, bibliotecas y todo.  Claro que conservo en mi corazon y de visita a mis lindos amigos  y siempre los voy a ver (Primero Dios).
Xiir



Today I found a place, a room with a bathroom, shared kitchen, in a very nice section of Merida.  I am tired but very grateful to my friends and family who hosted me (especially to those friends who invited me to stay as long as I want in their homes, wonderful friends), and to Don Chebo in Puerto Morelos who repeatedly asked me to stay -though I would like to stay with all of my dear friends, it is better for me to be in a city where I can function better, with better public transport, museums, libraries, etc.  Naturally I keep always in my heart my dear frineds and always will visit with them.
Şiir

Looking for an apartment...

Şiir

Buscando posada o casita...
Xiir

http://www.box.net/shared/3vv4tuxiye
The more I listen to this one, the more I love it. It is definitely one of my all-time faves now.

http://www.box.net/shared/edk6socfji
This one is another favorite. I think he is describing here the plight of the academic, a plight with which I think a lot of us can relate, especially in theological and philosophical disciplines. For me, personally, a big issue that recurringly comes up in my work is the question of how to ground theory in action. It is all well and good to consider and explore the different avenues and implications of any given question. But what good is all of that consideration apart from its usefulness in practical application? Thus, one of the major developments of my thought since I arrived at grad school has been to undertake this sort of meta-question of how the conclusions at which I arrive in terms of any given question might result in a restructuring of my activity (or the activity of anyone who would read my work) in everyday life. To put it in more abstract terms, I have become increasingly concerned with creating a fluid avenue between the patterns of internal thought and external actions. With this song, I think, Andrew Bird offers an artful expression of that struggle.

http://www.box.net/shared/pgo96ipqtx
This is another song in which Bird seems to be setting his attention on the ills of academia, perhaps more explicitly than in the last. Here he seems to be criticizing the tendency of the educational process to prioritize certain manifestations of intelligence over against others, a tendency which ultimately serves to stunt the creative process in a child's development. This is because the child accepts the common view that his or her talents are somehow less valuable than the kid with the talents that are more lauded by society. Thus, the "complex."

http://www.box.net/shared/iyasa8et0a
And this one is just another awesome one. But I don't have much to say about it!

http://www.box.net/shared/m8k03gtx3u
This one, too!

You cannot really value a subject without at the same time valuing the web of contrapuntal relations that it takes part in.
—Morten Tønnessen, “Umwelt Ethics,” Sign System Studies 31.1 (2003), pp. 281-99, esp. 292