Oh, a storm is threat’ning My very life today If I don’t get some shelter Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away War, children, it’s just a shot away It’s just a shot away War, children,…
Browsing Category Science
The Tatters of Pragmatism
I just reread the section of Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club where Chauncey Wright is introduced and his importance to the major thinkers of the time is noted. Menand begins this introduction with what seems…
In Dark Dispersal
What is truer of Man’s believing than revelation; A complicated problem is only further complicated by being simplified. A state of confusion is never made comprehensible by being given a plot. Appearances do not deceive…
The Custom House: Louis Agassiz with Christoph Irmscher
Episode 2 is now available for download: Agassiz, Inc. Please share far and wide, early and often. Thanks! This week I speak with biographer Christoph Irmscher about the legacy of Louis Agassiz, one of the…
Autism, ADHD, Adaptation and Randomization
[Cross-posted at Schools Matter.] I. Some time ago I wrote a piece noting how it seems autism is becoming a useful “disorder” to have. (I used the quotes for a reason which I hope becomes…
What is a Metaphysic?
Evolution may be considered as a fairly straightforward metaphysical theory with a long history which was not so much confirmed by the theory of natural selection as embarrassed by it. The difference between the two…
Lord of the Level Loadstone
Thou Vain Toy, Part II [ PDF Link ] How can we be done perspectivizing? Yesterday I offered a load of underlinings from an essay by Morse Peckham. As a kind of “proof” text I suggested Ahab’s…
Thou Vain Toy
For Bobby C., underlinings from an essay by Morse Peckham, “Man’s Use of Nature,” offering powder and ball to my NO! in thunder. And, perhaps as expected, Ahab will have the last word. *** An…
Where Be Your Tygers?
Let this serve as a kind of literary addendum to yesterday’s post. And let us first mark out some territory. Perhaps there are two ways that humans MEAN as beings. 1. The animal that may…
Minecraft, Or The Play’s the (Latest and Last) Thing
UPDATE: A Literary Addendum I know a boy who plays Minecraft somewhat as if it were his quest to reach the nirvana state that comes of internalizing the Jesus Prayer. I suppose he substitutes “Steve”…