A Semantic Vestige of the Parthian Empire

The Parthians were the folks who ran a large part of what we now call Iran as the Hellenistic kingdom in the region, the Seleucids, was fading away.

The Parthians were known for a trick they perfected in heated battles, when it was necessary for some part of their line to make a retreat. They learned to fire a terrible volley of arrows in one direction while moving in the other -- creating what later writers would call a "covering fire" that kept their foes at bay while they could re-organize.

This sort of volley became known for a long time as a "Parthian shot," although in English that got simplified and dumbed down over time into ... "parting shot."

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Searle: The Chinese Room

John Searle has become the object of accusations of improper conduct. These accusations even have some people in the world of academic philosophy saying that instructors in that world should try to avoid teaching Searle's views. That is an odd contention, and has given rise to heated exchanges in certain corners of the blogosphere. At Leiter Reports, I encountered a comment from someone describing himself as "grad student drop out." GSDO said: " This is a side question (and not at all an attempt to answer the question BL posed): How important is John Searle's work? Are people still working on speech act theory or is that just another dead end in the history of 20th century philosophy? My impression is that his reputation is somewhat inflated from all of his speaking engagements and NYRoB reviews. The Chinese room argument is a classic, but is there much more to his work than that?" I took it upon myself to answer that on LR. But here I'll tak...

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The Growing Block Theory of Time

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Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

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