philosophy

  • The New York Times Magazine has an article that attempts to explain, in layman's terms, David Foster Wallace's philosophy thesis from his senior year at Amherst.
    A highly specialized, 76-page work of semantics and metaphysics, it is not for the philosophically faint of heart. Brace yourself for a sample sentence: “Let Φ (a physical possibility structure) be a set of distinct but intersecting paths ji–jn, each of which is a set of functions, L’s, on ordered pairs (), such that for any Ln, Lm in some ji, Ln R Lm, where R is a primitive accessibility relation corresponding to physical possibility understood in terms of diachronic physical compatibility.” There are reasons that he’s better known for an essay about a boat.
    Until his recent death (but not because of it), the thesis was generally unavailable to the public until this past September. (0) #
    12/12/2008
  • In Our Time over at the BBC has just wrapped up a poll picking out the top ten philosophers of all time. I'm not sure if the poll limited the results to Western philosophers, but every member of the top ten comes from the Western tradition. The top three? 1) Karl Marx; 2) David Hume; and 3) Ludwig Wittgenstein. 2) and 3) seem about right to me -- Karl Marx I've never personally read (except for the Communist Manifesto). (2) #
    10/31/2006
  • Yesterday's Slavoj Žižek article led me to a few more intersting links. First, there's the trailer for Žižek!, a documentary following the eponymous philosopher during his lecture circuit, with a soundtrack by the excellent one-man band A Hawk and a Hacksaw. (I saw AHAAH's live show a year ago, and it was awesome.) Second, there's a fascinating New Yorker profile of Žižek. (via ss) (1) #
    9/12/2006
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