Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Carrie Jenkins is a philosophy professor at the University of British Columbia who has built a reputation in the philosophy of romance and relationships. She is a defender of polyamory, the view that the maintenance of intimate relationships with more than one partner is a moral and appropriate life style. This is always defended with the proviso that the partners are not kept secret from one another.  After all, polyamorous person who allows him/herself to be thought to be a monogamous person by any of the partners is of course, a cheater and a skunk -- I don't understand Jenkins to dispute that. Anyway, there is some question as to whether Jenkins is to a sufficient extent a lover of the practice of scholarly rigor. There is, fittingly, a triangular story here. I learned of the recent dust-up about Jenkins from Brian Leiter's blog. Leiter himself holds to a philosophical position I like to think of as "Menshevik." He is an old school leftist who see social ...

Praying the Gay Away Back in July 2015 I wrote, in my round-up of THAT recently completed SCOTUS term, about the Court's decision to deny cert in KING v. CHRISTIE. This left standing the decision of the 3d Circuit C of A upholding New Jersey's ban on"conversion therapy," that is, on giving the "pray the gay away" stuff the mantle of science. Two years later, there is another denial of cert to report in much the same situation. Again the Court preserved a legislative rebuke to such therapy by denying cert. http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-court-gayconversion-idUSL1N1I31A6   There was a shade of difference. The earlier case was presented as a "free speech" challenge, this one as a "freedom of religion" challenge. Since Hobby Lobby, the  freedom-of-religion clause has been very chic in right-of-center circles. Personally, though, I thought that the earlier challenge had some prima facie plausibility, as I said at the time. I can...

I bought a memoir by Joyce Carol Oates not long ago. Why? Well ... I knew her name. She has a considerable reputation as a novelist. I had never read any of her novels, and thought this might be a way to sample her abilities. It was a mistake. As noted in the first sentence above, the book I bought,  A Widow's Story is not a novel. It is a memoir. And it is a thoroughly depressing memoir about her husband's death and the early months of life alone after a happy marriage of decades. This passage, from early on in the book, represents about as far as I managed to get before giving up. --------------------------------  Your husband's heartbeat has accelerated -- we haven't been able to stabilize it -- in the event that his heart stops do you want extraordinary measures to be used to keep him alive? I am so stunned that I can't reply, the stranger at the other end of the line repeats his astonishing words -- I hear myself stammering Yes! Yes of course --...

Villamaino's pre-trial hearing date, last I knew, was set for December 3. Whether it will actually generate any news, I have no idea. Unless you keep up with the news of certain suburbs of Springfield, MA, you likely have no idea who Enrico ("Jack") Villamaino is. The chap pictured above. Splashy voter fraud case, though., With an odd twist -- but we'll get to that. Villamaino was a Selectman in East Longmeadow, Mass. He wanted to move up the political ladder and become a state representative (as a Republican.) The state alleges that he sought to do this through an elaborate scheme for tampering with ballots. He had help from a town employee, Courtney Llewellyn. In a Hollywoodish touch, Villamaino was actually arrested on October 16th with a passport and a bag with personal effects. He had apparently told witnesses his planned destination was Switzerland. Dude! That sort of thing makes it tough for your lawyer to argue for low bail. Here's the neat twi...