Philosophers' Carnival #166 is HERE. Tristan wrote me an e-mail kindly pointing out that in previous links I'd put the apostrophe before the s. Wow that would be weird, some one person known as "Philosopher" who has this travelling carnival. I don't know what all that would include, but I don't think it's too much…

Stanford mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani has been awarded the Fields medal, the most prestigeous prize in mathematics.   She is the first woman to win the prize.   Details here.

I’ve recently encountered a suggestion (in personal communication) that it might be difficult for an Enlightenment thinker to envisage republicanism in barbarian or even more savage peoples. While that makes sense with regard to the civility and legal institutions that Enlightenment thinkers are looking for in a desirable state, and saw in the ancient republics…

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some  things that were wrong.  We did a whole lot of things  that were right, but we tortured some folks. — President Barack Obama, Press Conference (Aug 1, 2014) "That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect,  who had a fashion of calling everything "odd"…

 Recent research has led me to look at the role of irony in aesthetics and philosophy. My interest was most immediately stimulated by section 408 of Vico’s New Science, which seems to me to point towards the role of irony and literary aesthetics in the Jena Romantics and Kierkegaard. Vico does so by referring to…

Article here. Discuss.

Who is the hidden one? The last one here? After the blockade? Who, in the violated courtyard, walks around on feathers of torn bedding, strewn about, Who walks on wrecked crockery and kitchen gear, thrown, broken, of no human use? and too on family photographs of those driven from their homes ,pursued to be destroyed?…

Gary Shaprio raised the issue of the relationship between Nietzsche and Vico in the comment thread of my recent post on Vico (comments 2 and 5), and that is a topic well worth exploring a bit further. I've looked at it in the past in my personal blog, but too far back to bring in thoughts…

I know a few regular readers of this blog have views about the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.   I want to ask a question about what is supposed to be the response to a basic worry about a whole family of approaches.  (David Wallace's recent book would be an obvious case, but so…

Shocking report here on how bad the California ground water situation is to go along with the terrible drought conditions.  Groundwater is the only thing keeping California afloat, so to speak, through the last 3 consecutive years of drought.