Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Adler Yacht, a Switzerland based company with its construction sites in Italy, recently unveiled the Suprema 76 foot motor yacht, a landmark move of the hybrid technology into yachting. The Suprema’s propulsion system consists of two Caterpillar C18 1,150 hp diesel engines, a 170 kWh lithium polymer battery, and two ATE 100 kW e-Units used to control operations and the transitions between the electric motor and the combustion engine. Those are specs I've lifted from ad copy. It sounds like an impressive piece of work. There have always been electric boats afloat [well, "always' here means since Edison's day]. It's one classic way of keeping a propeller turning. But the so-called "battery on board" systems have generally been limited to rivers and harbors. Battery tech historically hasn't generated the oomph necessary to take a vessel out into the open sea. That is changing, as the Suprema's hybrid system shows. The Suprema can t...

My own post titles are, I recognize, quite pedestrian. Today I'd like to recognize some cleverness on the point, from a philosopher writing about one of my regular obsessions, the mind-body problem. Edward Feser, a Thomist, once headlined a post on his blog thus: Animals are conscious! In other news, sky is blue, water wet. Good one. "Woof."

Max Weber famously defined the State as the institution of a human community "that (successfully) lays claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical violence within a given territory." That definition had been very useful to anarchists, including anarcho-caps, as it has given us a nice definition of what we are saying we are against when we say we are against the State. The definition raises certain immediate questions. For Americans, accustomed to arguments over the "state" (in the historically specific sense) and the federal government, the question naturally arises whether a state can agree to share its 'monopoly.' Should we define terms so that both Virginia and the USA have some say in deciding what is a legitimate use of violence in downtown Richmond? Is that a duopoly in one sense but still a monopoly in another? Then there is the word "legitimate." The context indicates that Weber sees that state as self-defining in this ...

I didn't post anything especially Easter-ish last weekend. This post is in penance. Modalism, in the history of Christian theology, is the doctrine (or if you will the heresy) that the three persons of the divine trinity are distinct modes of a single revelation, not distinct persons within the Godhead. So if a theologian tries to compare the three persons of the trinity to the three states of water: ice, liquid water, and vapor, he is likely to be accused of modalism.  Modalism is is also sometimes called monergism ("the work of One"). This is generally taught together with and in contrast to partialism, the view that each of the persons of God is one-third of God. Thus, if one uses and takes too seriously St Patrick's analogy of the trinity, the three-leaf clover, one is subject to the accusation of partialism.  The two are generally taught together -- at least in the Sunday school lessons of my receding memories -- because modalism denies the ge...

No, this doesn't personally concern me. Though I'm always looking to supplement my income, the sending-out-resumes thing? No. Still, I came across this, and it appears the challenges of job seeking are changing in this millennium. One has to worry about resume fonts and something called the ATS. https://www.forwardmotioncareers.com/resume-fonts-and-ats-the-facts/

"If anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses’ madness, he will   fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds.” Plato, Phaedrus 245a. I saw that in a FB group, and the poster asks for our takes on what Plato is saying here. I don't think there's any exegetical mystery to be unwound here. As Plato goes, the meaning seems pretty clear.  But I replied, beginning with a question of my own. "Have you seen the movie AMADEUS? It is making the same point. The world is full of talented mediocrities in music and in literature. If they can earn an honest living at their talent they are surely entitled to it. But when an Aristophanes comes along (or a Mozart) he reaches another domain entirely. That of genius." To be clear, the analogy I am suggesting is that Mozart is to Salieri as Aristophanes is...

I've written about the Voynich manuscript here only once, years ago. Here's a quick review: Wilfred Voynich was an early 20th century ms dealer, and the manuscript that bears his name was a mysterious book he bought from the Jesuits, a book that originated in the 15th century (something carbon dating has confirmed). In the century since Voynich made its existence known to the world, nobody has been able to make hide nor hair of it, except for the guess -- based on the illustrations -- that its a medical or pharmacological text. The usual guess has been that the author performed some sort of cryptographical trickery upon Hebrew, although even that still isn't a matter of consensus. And, even if it were, that wouldn't get the job done. What trickery? Now some new information. A team of Canadian scientists think their algorithm has worked it out. Or at least parts of it. They derive this as the first sentence of the text, translated and decoded, " She made...