Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Isn't it past time we flush this ugly fellow out of our national politics and conversation, now? I don't mean President Trump.  For now I'll give him a bye.  The guy we need to flush at long last is ... Elon Musk. Seen in the photo here with one of his exes, the actress Talulah Riley, best known for Westworld.   Musk busted pleading to visit Pedo Island in Epstein files The world's richest man repeatedly sought to arrange a visit to "Little St James," aka Epstein's island or Lolita island. In particular, in November 2012, Epstein emailed Musk in expectation of such a visit, asking about logistics, "how many people will you be for the heli to island?"  The future head of the US Department on Government Efficiency responded, "Probably just Talulah and me. What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?" Musk had divorced Talulah in March of that year. Plainly though  they had not cut each other off entirely: they would remarry in...

  Brian Leiter has made the point that there are three distinct models of doctoral education in philosophy, with regard to the English-speaking world. He calls them by their most distinguished representatives: Princeton, MIT, Pittsburgh. They are distinguished from one another by how they regard the history of the field. Is the history of philosophy itself a matter of doing philosophy?  On the Princeton model, history is treated as important, but distinct.  The department will incorporate courses on the great historical schools and interests.  There will be other course, though, about contemporary hot topics in Anglophone/analytic philosophy.  This two-track model is dominant in the US, and it has exemplars elsewhere, as at Oxford and Toronto. On the MIT model, Leiter continues, "the focus is almost entirely on contemporary research in analytic philosophy, with one or no lines set aside for history of philosophy." Finally, on the Pittsburgh model, "the history o...

  The Supreme Court of the United States receives between seven and eight thousand certiorari petitions each term. It grants arguments in ... about 80 of them each year. The math is simple: this means that somewhat less than 1% of cases that one or more parties seek to take to the Supreme Court actually get its full attention.   What this means, in turn, is that control of the US Supreme Court is not the be-all and end-all of judicial politics.  Most cases will remain decided the way courts below that have decided them.  It is an important fact.  The Biden administration was diligent in filling as many of those seats as possible. That is what has kept alive some hope that we will return after the Trump has gone to a world somewhat like the one he disrupted. I mean not to idealise the pre-Trump United States but simply to state the obvious: Trump has done a good job of making us nostalgic for the old republic.  The courts, especially the lower courts, a...

 This will be my last post on this blog in this month.  And this has been so poignant, so fascinating, so philosophically packed a month that I thought I could most fittingly end it with a rumination on months of January I have known as a resident in New England for most of my days on this planet.  Heck, even when I have lived for periods outside the charmed circle of New England it has seldom been further away than Poughkeepsie.  Or Staten Island.  So ... what do I think about this mythically two-faced moment of a month in this recurrent trip of ours around the sun?  It sucks. 

 A friend commented, privately, upon my comment a few days back on Descartes and Spinoza and how they made their livings.  I said that Spinoza's living as a lens grinder does have a bearing on his philosophy and briefly explained why.  Lenses made possible both the infinite and the infinitesimal, through both the telescope and the microscope.  The world made possible by such instruments and the sciences they enable could indeed be deified. My friend found this unsatisfying.  But ... there is no accounting for taste. What is a tad more biting ... he noted accurately that I had offered no explanation at all of how the material circumstances of Descartes' life had any connection tohis philosophy. Here, then, is that explanation.  Descartes sold real estate, which he appears to have inherited, and to have used the proceeds to buy bonds, supporting himself thereafter as a coupon clipper. Consider those two sorts of asset: real estate and bonds.  Real estate...

 As the new year rolled in, many scholars and observers of the Supreme Court expected a quick opinion on the Trump tariff case. The courts below have held that the president does NOT have the authority he is claiming here. The oral arguments did not seem to advance the administration's cause.  So: if there is to be a decision striking down the tariffs, AND that decision would have complicated consequences in terms of working out the rebates, THEN it stands to reason SCOTUS will want to get the deed done quickly, lessening the complication.  The constant payment of these tariffs constitutes a tick-tick-tick that a court contemplating such a decision may want to shorten.  Yet as of this writing -- no tariff decision.  January's opinion days have come and gone, with no opinion on this subject.  Some are whispering that perhaps the outcome is not so clear-cut -- perhaps a court so much molded by President Trump will find a way to accommodate him.  I disagr...