But what _kind_ of bootstrap? It's clustered data (raters x schools), which raises interesting technical issues!

"If you were looking for a philosopher likely to appeal to Americans, Friedrich Nietzsche would be far from your first choice. After all, in his blazing career, Nietzsche took aim at nearly all the foundations of modern American life: Christian morality, the Enlightenment faith in reason, and the idea of human equality. Despite that, for more than a century Nietzsche has been a hugely popular—and surprisingly influential—figure in American thought and culture.

In American Nietzsche, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen delves deeply into Nietzsche's philosophy, and America’s reception of it, to tell the story of his curious appeal. Beginning her account with Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom the seventeen-year-old Nietzsche read fervently, she shows how Nietzsche’s ideas first burst on American shores at the turn of the twentieth century, and how they continued alternately to invigorate and to shock Americans for the century to come. She also delineates the broader intellectual and cultural contexts within which a wide array of commentators—academic and armchair philosophers, theologians and atheists, romantic poets and hard-nosed empiricists, and political ideologues and apostates from the Left and the Right—drew insight and inspiration from Nietzsche’s claims for the death of God, his challenge to universal truth, and his insistence on the interpretive nature of all human thought and beliefs. At the same time, she explores how his image as an iconoclastic immoralist was put to work in American popular culture, making Nietzsche an unlikely posthumous celebrity capable of inspiring both teenagers and scholars alike."

Later: There's a good (and quite positive) review in The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/article/164321/american-idol-nietzsche-america

"new interpretation of Spinoza’s iconoclastic philosophy, Hasana Sharp draws on his uncompromising naturalism to rethink human agency, ethics, and political practice. Sharp uses Spinoza to outline a practical wisdom of “renaturalization,” showing how ideas, actions, and institutions are never merely products of human intention or design, but outcomes of the complex relationships among natural forces beyond our control. This lack of a metaphysical or moral division between humanity and the rest of nature, Sharp contends, can provide the basis for an ethical and political practice free from the tendency to view ourselves as either gods or beasts." --- Umm, how is viewing Spinoza as a thorough-going naturalist at all _new_, let alone something which forces us to invoke feminist theory and (God, or Nature, save us) Marxism?

"consider this sample of hugely influential intellectual forces of the 20th century: Albert Einstein, Gandhi, Alan Turing, John Von Neumann, Kurt Godel, Bertrand Russell, John Maynard Keynes, Sigmund Freud, Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, and Martin Luther King.
Yes, many of them made their mark through practical action, but that does not disqualify their influence. All of them, without exception, fall closer philosophically to Carnap and Cassirer than to Heidegger or any of the other names Simpson or Skidelsky cites. Simpson is using a rather parochial measure of massiveness."

I excerpt: "(39) being disjoint from the object, (40) being not conducive to liberation, (41) birth, (42) enduring, (43) impermanence, (44) possession, (45) old age, (46) utter torment, (47) dissatisfaction, (48) deliberation, (49) pleasure, (50) clarity, (51) grasping the discordant, (52) affection, (53) discordance, (54) grasping the concordant, (55) fearlessness, (56) reverence, (57) veneration, (58) devotion, (59) lack of devotion, (60) obedience, (61) respect, (62) lack of respect, (63) suppleness, (64) ebullience, (65) speech, (66) agitation, (67) attainment, (68) lack of faith, (69) lack of suppleness, (70) purification, (71) steadfastness, (72) gentleness, (73) repentance, (74) anguish, (75) confusion, (76) arrogance, (77) grasping the unfavorable, (78) doubt, (79) pure discipline, (80) inner serenity, (81) fear", etc.  Sadly, "remembering that one has just broken a water pitcher" is not on the list.

The two counter-moves Blackburn makes here (facts don't give us reasons to do anything without desires; and the "so what?" response to "because the Inherent Moral Order says so") are ones I like.  But they are also ancient, and it is hard for me to imagine that Parfit doesn't at least _try_ to counter them.

I like this.

In which Jo Walton writes about Plato in exactly the same way she writes about fantasy novels, and it works.

Would "Shorter Johnston: Oh, may I join the Choir Invisible?" be fair, then? Later: after reading the sample chapter, I think it would be. Despite the commitment to "naturalism", does not seem to address the evolutionary issues (did good archaic Homo sapiens survive death? good Homo erectus? good australopithecines?) or the transience of the human species.

Very sad.

"Everyone who ever dealt with a Troll knows of the strong, nagging urge to argue back at him ; and they know, of course, that this urge must be repressed at all cost, for it is what Trolls feed on. Thus trolling is powered by the same basic motivation that it serves to satisfy : that crazy desire to get the last word in a conversation. Trolls exist because there is enough Trollhood in everyone of us for them to feed on." Plus: Socrates and Hui Shi as trolls.

Largely ripped off from Hoopes's _False Prophets_ --- but that's not so bad, because it's a good book (But it is bad, because he doesn't give a shout-out.)

Full text!

C'mon, Clark, tell us how you _really_ feel.

Not the whole thing - but wonderful as always. (Doesn't match my memory of Besterman's translation, maybe text from an 18th century one? No source given.)

It seems they're digitizing the old lectures. Lots of great stuff, along with much learnedly pious mumbling. Still missing many of the best (Dyson, Sherrington, Dewey...)

I normally like Blackburn's writing, which saves him from an "utter stupidity" tag, but --- _wow_ is this disappointing.

Not a lot of actual evidence of a trend towards more philosophy majors. But good for them even so...

Surprisingly sane; notes at http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2006-05.html

The book which convinced me that we have free will.

Only papers, not books.

Good review, many odd typos (OCR'd?)

Blackburn's (nicely acerbic) book reviews

John Emerson reviews an essay collection on same

Appreciation by Marx Wartofsky

John Emerson harshes on silly thought experiments from philosophical ethics (see: ticking bomb scenario).