Studies in a Dying Culture

Originally titled “Ethnoepistemology, my ass!”, written 2 August 2008. Excuse all the cuss words. I’ve cut out a few of the epithets, but I’m preserving the flavor of my diatribe. * * * * * Ethnoepistemology (James Maffie), The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. There are often lapses and biases in reference works in the humanities [...]

Cohen, Avner; Dascal, Marcelo; eds. The Institution of Philosophy: A Discipline in Crisis? La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989. Hilary Putnam, “Why Is a Philosopher?”, pp. 61-75. Putnam expresses his distemper with positivism and postmodernism, discusses the problem of language and the beloved philosopher’s problem of the brain-in-a-vat, and proposes his philosophy of internal realism. [...]

Cohen, Avner; Dascal, Marcelo; eds. The Institution of Philosophy: A Discipline in Crisis? La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989. Much of this book is a portrait of bankruptcy, permeated by the stench of Richard Rorty. Here are a few stool specimens. Hector-Neri Castaneda, “Philosophy as a Science and as a Worldview,” pp. 35-60. Castaneda is [...]

I have long delayed summarizing the books I read in all or part from February through April 2007, partly in hope of writing extensive reviews of some of them. For now, I will just list the books and some other materials, and I can always return and delve into more detail at a future date. [...]

[Deepening Democracy in Global Contexts, Chapter One] Achieving Our Country, Achieving Our World: Baldwin, Rorty, and Social Hope Judith M. Green, Fordham University If anything shows up the ideological nature and ultimate uselessness of pragmatism, this review does, first, by exposing the selective attention, nostalgia, myth-making and wish-fulfillment upon which Rorty’s social vision rests, and [...]

27 March 2007: Glaude: He is a professor of religion at Princeton University, “with research interests that include African American religious history and its place in American public life. Glaude was mentored by Dr. Cornel West as a Princeton grad student and has written/edited several books. In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics [...]

I wrote this on 15 January 2007, Martin Luther King’s birthday: Tavis Smiley interviews Cornel West, Jan 12, 2007 Cornel blurbs Tavis: I think that when it comes to mass media, this particular show enacts the legacy because what you have been able to do, Tavis. The reason why I believe you’re the most brilliant [...]

“. . . the Americans are worlds behind in all theoretical things, and while they did not bring over any medieval institutions from Europe they did bring over masses of medieval traditions, English common (feudal) law, superstition, spiritualism, in short every kind of imbecility which was not directly harmful to business and which is now [...]