Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

What have been the biggest stories in business/financial news over the last year? Quite synchronistic of you to ask: I was just about to address the point.   Breaking the answers down by month as usual, is tricky this year, since one of the big stories -- involving Elon Musk and Twitter, seemed to pop up in headlines in every month from April onward. I've crammed all the twists and turns of that saga into the single April entry.    There are two other key things to know about this list before you dig in. First, it is a very U.S. centric list. More so than the earlier items in this series. Second, the war in Ukraine has left a big mark on it. Indeed, every item on the list that follows is either US based or Ukraine War related. There are s even of the former and five of the latter.  This selectivity is of course absurd. There was lots of rest-of-the-world finance news that had little to do with the Ukraine war. In the United Kingdom, for example, Liz Truss had a chaotic rise into

 Let us continue the thoughts we expounded yesterday. For the "Latin" thinkers most inspired by Averroes had another trick up their sleeves, by way of remaining orthodox Roman Catholics while expounding on the unity of the intellect. They didn't have to go with doubling truth. They could also double up what is meant by "intellect."  For it isn't the intellect that needs to be saved in order not to be damned, according to that orthodoxy. It is the soul. And the intellectuals intent upon introducing Averroes' ideas north of the Mediterranean distinguished between the active or agent intellect on the one hand and the individual or passive intellect to be another. Aristotle speaks tersely of a passive intellect that "is what it is by becoming all things." He appears to mean that one aspect of the intellect becomes a balloon when it looks upon a balloon, becomes the 'popping' sound when it hears that. etc.   In my life, I have "become&q

 Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews has a review up of a new book on Averroes' thought, especially on the critical question of the unity of the intellect. The book is by Stephen R. Ogden, of Notre Dame' s philosophy faculty.  The review is the work of Kendall A. Fisher, of Gonzaga University.  Averroes on Intellect: From Aristotelian Origins to Aquinas’ Critique | Reviews | Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews | University of Notre Dame (nd.edu) Averroes is the philosopher known in the Arab speaking world as Ibn Rushd. One of the propositions for which he is well known among scholars in the history of philosophy is, as I mentioned above, that of the unity of the intellect. This is the proposition (which Averroes attributed to Aristotle) that all human beings share a single eternal intellect. Further, this single intellect is separate from our material selves.   It is an exegetically tricky question whether Averroes was right to read Aristotle that way. But it hardly matters: Averroes

 It has been a fun ride.  But 2022 may well go down in history as the year the cryptocurrency bubble popped. The popping has been going on since at least this summer.  (The Big Bubble here is actually composed of a bunch of smaller related bubbles.) The Big Crypto Bust likely began in Spring, when the whole "Terra" ecosystem collapsed. Terra is a blockchain created by Terraform Labs largely in order to constitute the foundation for two cryptocurrencies: TerraUSD and Luna. These were "stablecoins." In contrast to most cryptos, they were deliberately tagged to the US dollar in value.  Personally, I never saw the point of the stablecoin family. IF YOU BELIEVE that the US dollar is a stable store of value: own US dollars. Why in such a case are you in the market for any cryptocoin? The reason for a sane person to be in the marke t for cryptos is if the sane person believes the US dollar is NOT a reliable store of value. But in that case, why not invest in one of the man

  Fusion Power is a very exciting prospect. Even if it must come contaminated by the snake of statism. It will in time escape from the snake (as space travel so largely has).   I have a personal theory about the real underlying development of fusion power in recent years. It is a conspiracy theory of sorts, and I hesitate to present it in the present climate. But by the time the lights above my writing desk are powered by commercially successful fusion I will be having a lot to say about it one way or another.  I think that may be another twenty years from now. And, yes, I have hopes of still being around then, and having people compliment the 84 year old me on how spry I am. 

“Penalty to Sartre for excessively being French." https://existentialcomics.com/comic/476 That comic does not exactly depict the World Cup Final. ;-) But if it did, it would depict Sunday's game, where the  French played Argentina, and the Argentianians were presumably concerned that the French were excessive.  Yet the Argentinians told the soccer world "don't cry for me" and pulled off a win, which the country is celebrating as I write.

  By Andreas Vrahimis Palgrave Macmillan, 2022 402 pp., $139.99 Reviewed by Christopher C. Faille In the late years of the nineteenth and the early years of the twentieth century, French philosopher Henri Bergson became an international celebrity on the strength of three books, known in English as Time and Free Will , Matter and Memory, and Creative Evolution.    Bergson’s philosophy holds that time, novelty, and free will are all closely intertwined realities: The future contains surprises that cannot even in principle have been determined by calculation from the facts that exist today, and future human decisions are among those surprises.  Bergson ties this case to a dichotomous view of cognition. He sees a sharp distinction between intelligence and intuition. Intelligence is very useful; it is a survival mechanism for humans, but it cannot grasp the essence of reality: the movement of time. Intelligence geometricizes, reducing time to space and eliminating free will in the process.

  Benedict Arnold sought to turn over the plans to West Point to the British during America's War for Independence.  Although that plan didn't work out, he did escape to redcoat lines and became an officer in their ranks for the remainder of the war.  Soon after Cornwallis' surrender, Arnold took a ship eastward to the Mother Country. He died there twenty years later. But it is worth noting that his death came after a period as a social pariah. The Whigs despised him and even the Tories thought it best to keep their distance. Keep an eye on flights to Mother Russia. I think a Floridian golfer of orange hue may have the pilot of his private jet file a flight plan for Moscow soon.    The news of such a flight would be ... clarifying. And, although those who would prefer to see him wearing an orange jmpsuit will be disappointed, they may find cheering the thought that pariah-hood awaits him there. 

I discussed this in a post in July 2020.  Wirecard, founded in Germany in the 1990s, pioneered the use of a virtual prepaid card for online purchases.  In 2009, while the world was reeling from the global financial crisis, Wirecard introduced a fraud prevention suite to help protect its card customers against con artists. In retrospect it looks ominous that this was the catalyst of a great burst of growth.  Wirecard was soon a great success. A European Paypal. By the end of 2016 it was operating in Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Turkey, and in 2016 it entered the United States. When I last posted on the subject here, though, the virtual feces had just hit the fan. The Financial Times had done a series of investigative pieces about its funny accounting practices. Then, in late April 2020, the auditor announced it could not sign off on the books. Company shares fell 26% in a day. On June 5, the police searched Wirecard's headquarters in Munich. Less than two weeks l

  It is unlikely that the last word has been said on the subject. But the new Biden plan to rejigger the order of caucuses/primaries for the 2024 season is fascinating. I think of ethanol. The idea of mixing corn alcohol with gasoline as a way of extending gas mileage, helping the environment, and whatever else (preventing children from getting cavities even if they eat candy?) has always been dubious. Now, in the midst of a move away from the internal combustion engine toward other methods of getting personal vehicles to take you where you want to go, it seems hidebound and reactionary, a way of trying to lock us in with the force of law to a technology we should cheerfully dismiss.  Yet, for an obvious reason, Iowans love ethanol. They love rules that press upward on the price of their key export: corn.  That is an adequate reason, IMHO, to demote Iowa.  

  The "binding of Isaac" story continues to fascinate me, especially given the role it played in the sharp divide between Kantian and Kierkegaardian readings of Christianity and its hand-me-down God. = (99+) Three Perspectives on Abraham’s Defense Against Kant’s Charge of Immoral Conduct | Stephen R Palmquist and Philip M Rudisill - Academia.edu

One important consideration: COVID-19 didn’t generate trends. It accelerated them. For example, the traditional commute into the office and then back out into the suburbs late in the day was due for a major transformation even before COVID came along. Nonetheless, the virus’ impact to sharpen and refocus the existing trends has been striking. For decades a large portion of the white collar work force in the United States has lived in suburbs, commuted into "the office" in the morning, then headed back in late afternoon or early evening. It is a paradigm celebrated n stage and screens large and small. But THAT paradigm was looking rather tired even before Covid hit. The pandemic brought this to clarity -- we can do without it. There are a variety of reasons why we ought to do without it.  Many firms -- in law, accounting, software development, etc. -- in major cities such as New York and Boston scheduled return-to-work dates as early as the spring of 2021. They then cancelled

  The destruction of Twitter by the new management continues. Personally, I have for the most part moved my own micro-blogging to Mastodon.  If anyone else worries that twitter is turning into 4chan and they don't want anything to do with it, but they do enjoy the experience they have had there and want to replicate something like that elsewhere, Mastodon is one route.  It is a very decentralized social network, such that there is no asset or company that a billionaire could buy that would put him in charge of it. It involves a large number of independently run nodes, known as instances or, sometimes, servers. Yes, the term "server" in this context can be confusing, given its hardware significance, with which this usage has nothing to do.  The counterpart to a tweet is a toot, more commonly though just called a post. I like "toot." It is a natural development of the term Mastodon itself -- suggesting a noise out of an elephantine trunk. Surely more impressive th

Continuing a subject begun last week. Let us assume that I would like to see state-legal cannabis enterprises thrive, on the whole. Of course, as a capitalist I recognize that some will fail and they should be allowed to fail. I hope not to see the day when any head shop is considered Too Big to Fail like the banks of 2008.   Because I wish well for the industry as a whole, while allowing for failures of independent firms, I want to see the cannabis industry have access to the bankruptcy courts and especially to chapter 11, which allows for a company to enter the court's protection from creditors, under the umbrella of that protection re-organize its financial stricture, then re-emerge into normal operations, out from under the umbrella.  Something like this is best for everyone in the case of a business failure: best for the customers and employees, best for the investors, best even for the principals, although they often end up having a lessened connection to the reorganized firm

There are different ways to do headlines, adopting by different journalistic organizations. The front page for the Wall Street Journal had the following headline on p.1, on Nov. 22, "Disney Executives Told Board They Lost Faith in Ousted CEO."  Note that every word there is capitalized except for a preposition, "in". Note also, as is common, that the headline is a full grammatical sentence in the present tense.  This is a form of what is known as an "Up style" of headline typography.  A more drastic Up style is one in which EVERY LETTER IS UPPER CASE. This is generally used only for very short and dramatic headlines. ARMSTRONG ON MOON.  Headlines suitable for all caps treatment at generally not sentences. They are phrases or sometimes single words.  But there is also a Down style, typified by the usage of The Guardian, a distinguished London publication. A Guardian headline might read, "China fury at broader US inquiry into Covid.' (See col. one,

I received a question in Quora about the use of a certain word. I explained as best I could, and am reproducing the result below.  ------------------------------------------------------------------   T o some extent “liberalism” is simply like the word “bark” It can be used in many different ways. One has to decide from context whether the bark in question is the outside of a tree or the sound a dog makes. It would be just goofy to argue about this: “no, the REAL meaning of bark is the outside of a tree! You are trying to subvert and distort the language by transposing the word to the canine context.” Many of the arguments about the word “liberal” that one encounters are confused in much the same way. In the United States, the term is often used for what one might alternatively call a social democrat: for someone who believes that (a) there is a role for profit-seeking activity in the production of wealth, but (b) the DISTRIBUTION of that wealth is a matter in which the state has to pl

 Question for my readers. Aliens take over the earth. They are about to use their advanced technology to erase from the world by the press of a button, all of the music, and any memory of any of the music, of one of these musicians: Steve Perry or Sting.  Which one would you beg the alien overlords to spare?  Personally, I'm gonna to try to save the music of THIS guy. 

There is some ongoing judicial indecision about the relationship between Schedule I and Chapter 7. Schedule I of course is the list of substances considered by the U.S. government to have no approved medical use.  Chapter 7 is the liquidation chapter of the bankruptcy law. It generally requires that a trustee be appointed, and the truistee liquidate the assets of the defaulted company. Consider what may happen if a state-legal marijuana company becomes insolvent. The owner/manager may file chapter 11 hoping for reorganization. Some of the creditors, looking for a better deal from liquidation, may petition to court for a chapter 7 conversion. But tah entails that the liquidating trustee, acting under the authority of a federal court, is going to get into the business of selling (liquidating) to inventory of a company in the business of selling a schedule 1 drug.  This has seemed to some courts TOO paradoxical. The bankruptcy system after all is a federal not a state system, and the stat

Trumpism is a sinking ship. It was an awful ship, in any case, and we should all cheer its voyage to the bottom of the ocean.  If that is your view as well as mine, then you and I may share something else, too: an appreciation of the entertainment value when the rats jump off so hastily.  So why does the MSN headline have to say "train" instead of  ship"?  Hmmmm.  One-time MAGA supporter Tomi Lahren appears to be abandoning the Trump train (msn.com)  

  I recently binged my way through.... The Crown Season 5 on Netflix: Diana's interview, Prince Charles' breakdancing, and more. (slate.com) It was very well done. As the show moves through the decades, the cast keeps changing. So for example the part of Queen Elizabeth II was played by Claire Foy when she was a young woman, seasons 1-2, by Olivia Colman at greater age (seasons 3-4), and now by Imelda Staunton in season 5.  Staunton is best known, or has been best known until now, as one of the great villainesses of the Harry Potter books, Dolores Umbridge.  Staunton has not dislodged Colman as my personal favorite of the Elizabeths here. It was Colman who played off against Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson) in some epic scenes, and against the younger version of Diana, Princess of Wales (as played by in season 4 by Emma Corrin).  Those three actresses had a great dynamic triangle going in that fourth season. The fifth?  Thatcher is gone. Neither John Major nor Tony Blair of

I was asked in Quora recently about the utilitarian argument in favor of punishing criminals.  I'm happy with my response and I will reproduce it here. Joe the Burglar is caught red-handed trying to carry a television out of a stranger’s personal residence at 2 AM. Now: what is to be done about Joe? Should the law concern itself only with getting the television back into the hands of the rightful owner, and, say, getting Joe to pay for whatever damage he did breaking in? That would be all there is to it in a purely compensatory system of justice. But that violates our intuitions. The Joe’s of the world figure out pretty quickly that if that is the only response to their burglary, they might as well try again If they didn’t get away with it the first time they might get away with it the second, or tenth. A utilitarian will generally believe that burglary is a bad thing. After all, whatever pleasure it wins for Joe is more than made up for by (a) the pain it brings his victim, (b) th