Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Lyndon Johnson is often said to have remarked, upon seeing himself skewered by Walter Cronkite, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Mr. Average Citizen." Nowadays there is no Cronkite-like figure. And that story is likely apocryphal anyway.  There may not have been a Cronkite-like figure when Cronkite was anchor either. https://mwi.westpoint.edu/war-public-opinion-myth-cronkite-moment/ Still, I have to say -- something happened that the story does represent.  Lyndon Johnson won an epochal victory in 1964 -- in 1966, despite the usual opposition party midterm gains, Johnson and the Democrats held on to majorities in both Houses of Congress.  Yet in early 1968 he had to step aside and he spent the rest of the year (futilely) trying to make his VP his successor. The shift had everything to do with the Vietnam War which of course had to be reported upon at home. So the story can be taken for its grain of truth. There was a "Cronkite moment" of some sort sometime...

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews now includes a somewhat ambitious review of a very ambitious book about Johann Gottlieb Fichte, one of those Germanic figures between-Kant-and-Hegel thinkers I've spoken of, rather negatively, in this blog before. I don't repent of the negativity. It is not as a recommendation, then, but simply as a public service that I include this book note.   The book is FICHTE ON FREE WILL AND PREDESTINATION, the author is Kienhow Goh, and the reviewer at NDPR is   Steven Hoeltzel, James Madison University. Note that the title is not about "free will and determinism".  It is about free will and predestination -- a different thing, a different joust. 

Eric Weinstein is. by occupation, a VC fund manager. He is also an economist. In 2002 he co--authored a paper (with Adil Abdulali) on the valuation perversities of mortgage-backed securities. That paper looks pretty good in retrospect, after those perversities helped feed in to the crises of 2007-08.  By education, he is a mathematician, having received a Ph.D. in the field from Harvard for a thesis on the extension of self-dual Yang-Mills equations. No, I don't know what that means. I do know something about VC managers and about mortgage backed securities, though, and it's my blog, so I will proceed.   In aspiration anyway, Weinstein is a also a physicist. He has devised what he calls a theory of "Geometric Unity" which he believes may reconcile quantum theory with Einsteinian relativity.  He theory bubbled along in obscurity for some time until somehow it drew attention from television host Piers Morgan. Piers Morgan had Weinstein on his show, coupled with Sean Ca...

Many people know something about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. exposed in July 25, 1972 by the Associated Press.   Fifty three years ago.  More than 100 black American men died of untreated syphilis.  Most in ignorance of what they had, and some in the belief that they were receiving treatment, when in fact they were receiving placebos. Penicillin was the standard treatment for syphilis at the time -- or starting in 1947 when the study was in full stride.  The men involved were not only not told this, in some cases  they were actually prevented from receiving such treatment, since their value as human guinea pigs was considered so high.  As I said, most people know this.  But today's anniversary, of the leak that got the project closed down at last, is less well known.  Peter Buxton was the key whistleblower. He leaked the information to Jean Heller of the Associated Press.  Just a simple example of how so often the direction of the ...

  Powell has done a fine job as chair of the Federal Reserve.  He is under attack, as Fed chairs often come under attack.  President Trump clearly wants an interest rate cut.  POTUS sometimes talks as if such a cut is a nice reward for a well-performing dog. Our economy has "virtually no inflation" he has said, and "is doing really well," so the rate should be cut to 2 percent.  Good dog. Here's the treat.   That is insane.  The economy seems to be avoiding inflation because Powell has kept rates up.  After all, one of the consequences of high rates is to make fixed income instruments, bonds and the like, attractive. Investment in boring long-term bonds is like investment of one's cash in a pillow case.  It is money effectively taken out of circulation -- hence it is a damper on prices.   To be clear, Powell is not holding rates at historically high levels, unless one's historical lens is quite near sighted. Rates are roughly...

A company called Gramercy, which advises investors on opportunities for capital in the "emerging market" nations, says that now is a good time for lending money to countries in Latin America, Africa, and much of Asia.  Why? Because the US is driving the economic action out of itself, in their direction.  Presumably the opposite of the intention. Uncertainty about everything from the supply chains for US companies that import their inputs to the independence of the Federal Reserve have all made the rest of the world seem a better place to invest. Furthermore, the US will to a large extent drag the rest of the industrialized world with it for some time yet, so opportunities are to be found ... elsewhere. In the not-yet industrialized world, i.e. the emerging markets.  Good going, Mr President.  It is an ill wind that blows no good.  

  Dipping into the ol' library for a random quotation.  On human invention and water power. "When it first occurred to a reflecting mind that moving water had a property identical with human or brute force, namely, the property of setting other masses in motion, overcoming inertia and resistance -- when the sight of the stream suggested through the point of likeness the power of the animal --a new addition was made to the class of prime movers, and when circumstances permitted, this power could become a substitute for the others." Alexander Bain, THE SENSES AND INTELLECT (1879).  

My friend Gary Weiss has becoming very focused on the NYC mayoral campaign.  Weiss, author of books on crime, financial and otherwise (his book on the rise and fall of Crazy Eddie's, a very New York centric tale, is pertinent here)  is anti-Mamdani with some fervor.  He has a very well written article on the subject in Discourse this week. Rather than paraphrase it, I'll just link you to it and give you a brief quote.  https://www.discoursemagazine.com/p/trouble-right-here-in-new-york-city?fbclid=IwY2xjawLgpqlleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETE4T0dqTzExQm0zdWp3MEhsAR7jw4RugcsWBNFa4YOhxFNdvSyoW7yJ1kOzGbJO1HuRbYoTilv1rrpwLMpyPg_aem_S-eWO8EvUTeDik6MBziqqA   After discussing his objections to Mamdani's "rent freeze" plan Weiss turns on himself and says,  " See how much detail it took to address just  two words  blasted out by Team Mamdani? That is the essence of an effective con. Be simple while your critics are compelled to be complicated as they dig throu...

I note here a new book in the domain of moral philosophy, with some obvious implications for jurisprudence,  IGNORANCE AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY by Michael J. Zimmerman.  Zimmerman maintains that ignorance of the "I didn't know the gun was loaded" sort, is a proper defense to a charge of wrongdoing. Or, in his words, "if one committed some act or omission that was wrong while ignorant of the fact that it was wrong, one is to blame for it, and thereby to blame for any of its consequences, only if one is to blame for one's ignorance."  Doesn't sound all that novel, put that way.  Few of us would blame a pregnant woman taking a morning sickness drug for the disability of her baby.  We might blame a research scientist who was tasked with testing that drug before it could reach market.  But we would blame him precisely because he is the one who is supposed to be aware of his ignorance on such matters when he IS ignorant.   Or, as lawyers say, guilt requ...

Two fascinating cases this year involved interpretations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In both cases the Court leaves the statutory scheme roughly as the Court found it -- which is presumably the goal in addressing such cases, at least when the statute's legitimacy isn't itself the point. In another two cases this year the Court interpreted gun maker liability. They denied such liability in the one case and refused an invitation to deny it in the other.   I'll also have something to say about a quick journey from terrorism to civil procedure, and about the scope of environmental review, before offering a concluding thought. Interpreting the disabilities act   On June 20th the Court handed down its decision in Stanley v. City of Sanford, allowing what one might naively have considered "discrimination" against a disabled retiree firefighter  in the the rejuggling of a pension plan. `   The "Sanford" involved is in Florida, a short drive north fro...

Issues of health [and its insurance] seem pretty paradigmatically Trumpy. After all, Donald Trump's first presidency ended amidst a haze of charges and counter-charges about the Covid epidemic and his handling thereof.  His second presidency began after a team-up with the craziest member of the Kennedy clan, who was elevated to the post of Secretary of Health.  Also, there is the generally accepted fact that Trump's three nominees to the Supreme Court were generally chosen because they would advance the cause of reversing ROE v. WADE. And of course, they accomplished that mission.    Church-state disputes, classic "establishment clause" matters of the sort that once would have been handled under the three-part Lemon test, are also Trumpy, because this is an administration of a more-or-less avowed Christian nationalism.  Finally, the issue of due process within the ambit of deportation proceedings is the Trumpiest legal question imaginable.  So in this post...

Andre Geim  won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010 "for ground-breaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene." He is in the news again, 15 years later, because the country whose citizenship he claimed when he won that award, Holland, says he is no longer a citizen there.  The Dutch have very strict standards for dual citizenship and he, trying to play both sides of the English Channel, seems to have violated them.  Geim fascinates me in part for the silliest of reasons, our birthdays are very close. I was born on October 18, 1958 and Geim was born three days later, on the 21st of that month and year. He received news of his Nobel when he and I each had just entered the month of our 52d birthdays.  But the news that he is no longer officially Dutch? Speaks, I think, to the developing incoherence of the whole concept of national citizenship.  If he gains rights by being Dutch that he wouldn't otherwise have by virtue of being a Brit (rights w...

  I have put off work on the third and fourth installments of my discussion of the recently concluded session of the US Supreme Court until next week.  I owe you one on very-Trumpy jurisprudential subjects and another, concluding piece on SCOTUS that will have a not-so-Trumpy focus. But the work on them has taken longer than I thought it would, and there have been troubles at the homestead that have taken my mind off of it for stretches, so I will give you lighter fare today and tomorrow and finish up on SCOTUS next week.    This post is about nothing other than itself.  Tomorrow's post will concern a recent story involving physicist Andre Geim.  The only other thing I want to say to you today is this: I'm curious about the whole "without wax" thing.  There is a story about the etymology of the word "sincere". Something of an urban legend. I've discussed this in this blog before, though years back so I don't mind repeating myself.  Medieval merch...

This year is destined to seem a remarkable one for yet unborn historians of the struggle over capital punishment in these United States, if only because this was the year that Richard Glossip escaped execution. It was a near-run thing, but it now seems that not only will Glossip get a new trial, but that death will be "off the table" in the context of this new trial.   On February 25 of this year, SCOTUS held, in an opinion by Justice Sotomayor, that Glossip must get a new trial on the precedent of the same court's ruling in 1959, NAPUE v. ILLINOIS. NAPUE established that prosecutors violate the constitution when they knowingly obtain a conviction using false evidence, either by soliciting false testimony or by allowing false testimony to stand without correction.  When that happens, Sotomayor wrote, the defendant is entitled to a new trial if there is a reasonable chance that the false testimony could have affected the first jury's decision.    In this case, mu...

  Welcome. It is that time of year again: time for this blog's four-part discussion of the just-concluded US Supreme Court session.  As has been my habit, there will be four parts to this. Today, I will focus on one outstanding case, after some introductory observations. Tomorrow, I will look to developments this year in the jurisprudence of capital punishment.  Thursday, we will discuss what I think of as quintessentially Trump-era cases and controversies. These include tariffs and the founders' reservation of the "power of the purse" to the legislature. The Trump-distinctive posting will also address the Alien Enemies Act and the way it has been brought out of a deep archive to remake immigration policy.  Finally, Friday, we will get to some evergreen controversies such as specific interpretations/applications of the Americans With Disabilities Act and efforts at imposing civil liability on gun manufacturers. I will also address Blom Bank , an anti-terrorism case t...

The word "curb" has a perfectly clear physical meaning, especially when it is used as a noun.  "I just ran over the curb" means "I just ran over the strip of raised asphalt on the edge of the road and the limit of my yard." The experience likely gave the speaker of that sentence an unpleasant bumping sensation, increased maintenance cost for his car and at least one tire, and should deter him from repeating whatever turn or inattention caused the run-in.  That, at least, is a key reason why the curb is there.   Of course "curb" can also be used less physically.  Perhaps one might say metaphorically, but I'm not sure "metaphor" is really the right word.  "Republicans elected to Congress in 1946 were devoted to placing new curbs on the power of labor unions." There is also the verb use, "please curb your enthusiasm for this diner -- the food here is going to kill you." A recent television show was built around that...

What are the reasons for believing that Mamdani, even if he wins the mayor's office, will find that it is for him a dead end?  There is his rent freeze thing, to begin. My old anarcho-cap instincts kick in here. Markets are very useful things -- it is precisely in the valuation of assets (and of transferable liabilities) that they most directly prove their worth, and rent control in all its forms is a direct attack on this function. New York City's history with "rent stabilization" is a solid illustration of this point. The history is not happy. And intensifying the war on the discovery of value will do a good deal of harm to actual values.      Brenda Richardson wrote a fine brief piece in Forbes on some of these issues two years ago.   The bottom line is that Mamdani seems likely to mess with the housing market in ways that effectively freeze new construction of livable spaces, force further skimping on maintenance, lead to longer waitlists and reduced m...

 This is the sort of come-from-nowhere figure who can really enliven politics, even in the eyes of jaded folks who think they've seen it all. Mamdani was a nobody when he entered the race for the Democrati Party's nomination for Mayor of New York City.  He was a member of the New York State Assembly, 36th district, a district within NYC, hugging the East River from the Queens side. In the last two elections for that seat, he ran for re-election unopposed. When Mamdani first entered the race for the Mayoral nomination, he was laughed off and the pollsters were giving him 1 percent. His opponents included a former Governor of the State, Andrew Cuomo [not merely a former Gov., but the son of the Gov. the state recently named a bridge for] and Brad Lander, the incumbent Comptroller of NYC.  Lander went so far as to get himself arrested in the act of protesting Trump deportation policies during the campaign. It looked for 15 minutes like a brilliant political move.  It d...

The rich and powerful do like to get together for their Big Events, don't they? And demonstrate their command of wretched excess in the process.  The rest of us do our part by gawking -- hence the interest of the world in Jeff Bezos' wedding to Lauren Sanchez in Venice.  Business Insider , always on the lookout for the fresh angle, reports that there is a prenup. Whew.  Glad to hear it. Bezos married his first wife, MacKenzie Scott, without a prenup and ended up having to give her $38 billion in Amazon shares in the divorce settlement.  Don't know what the terms of the Bezos-Sanchez prenup are. Sanchez is a successful television reporter who has something of a side gig of playing television reporters in fictional contexts. She did this, for example, in Gotham Tonight , a three-episode web series that served as a prequel to a Batman movie. She was also an unnamed entertainment anchor in an episode of Dirt in 2008.    I also refuse even to do a google search...