Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Antithenes: if one is going to claim any familiarity with the Platonic moment in philosophy, with the moment that produced but did not yet contain Cynicism, Stoicism, and Pyrrhonism, one needs to know the name Antithenes.  He was one of Socrates' followers, and so of very much the same philosophic milieu as Plato.  But Antithenes went the other way on the issue of universals. He may even be said to be the founder of nominalism, saying thing like, "A horse I can see, but horsehood I cannot see."  Too little in known about him.  We do know, though, that the later Cynics claimed him as a spirit kindred to their own. They would tell a story of Diogenes of Sinope, as a young man, following Antithenes around to bask in his wisdom. This tale seems unlikely.  It was invented to give the Cynics a sort of apostolic succession from Socrates, who by Diogenes' day was seen as the gold standard of philosophical greatness by a number of distinct factions. Socrates to Antithene...

Yes, Big Pharma is a suitable target for resistance, even Resistance. A lot of people agree about this -- pretty near every adult American not on the payroll of Big Pharma and even many who are on those payrolls would agree with this. And so we have Robert F. Kennedy Jr ready to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Aside from his family name and connections, this is the one point of appeal about RFK Jr.: not that he once hid a dead bear in Central Park in an elaborate ruse, not that he is a licensed master falconer, not even that there is a dead critter in his head ... but that he is an enemy of Big Pharma. But we ought to try to be clear at the expense of that unlikely appeal. For many of us, the big problem that MAKES IT SO is not that Big Pharma invents imaginary ills in order to sell drugs that create real ills. No ... the big problem is that Big Pharma abuses IP law so that it gets to jack up the prices of drugs that are genuinely valuable. Not that its products a...

I haven't been reading books at all like THIS since I was a political science major at an undergrad college in the late 1970s. Barry Buzan & Ole Waever, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (Cambridge UK 2003). I've discussed the underlying idea before on this blog.  Buzan and Waever pursue RSC Theory, a form of international relations realism that focuses on states as primarily members of regional groupings. My previous comments on the theory were offered at second hand. Now I'm finally reading the theorists themselves. I propose to write a series of posts on the subject, beginning with this one (hence the Roman numeral in the title). Start with this.  "A handful of states at the top of the power leagues play a truly global game, treating each other as a special class, and projecting their power into far-flung regions. But for the great majority of states, the main game of security is defined by their near neighbors....The binding theme of ...