Full disclosure: I'm a Bernard Williams fanboy. No doubt about it. I never had the chance to meet him before he died, but when I read his works, I found that a huge number of issues began to make sense. I am really just starting my philosophical career, but I do hope to follow up on his.
Speaking of great philosophers, Jussi Suikkanen is also an awesome philosopher, much more awesome than I am. Jussi posted an interesting question about Williams' account of reasons and thick concepts on the excellent PEA Soup blog. The question was quickly answered in the blog comments, but good on everyone for getting involved in Williams' work.
I mean, after all--I somehow feel I should mention this--Williams essentially remade moral philosophy during his career, proposing arguments, distinctions, concepts and thought-experiments that play a dominant role in ethical philosophizing today. I've taught him in 1st year classes, in 3rd-year classes, and in graduate seminars. In a month, there is a conference on his work featuring Martha Nussbaum and Jonathan Lear. No-one in the field would deny his importance. Except, maybe, Patricia Churchland, who appears to know about as much about Williams as I do about basket-weaving. Straight up: this ignorance is inexcusable. After all, Churchland is an A-list philosopher who has recently written a book on morality (and, you guessed it, neuroscience).
She chose Jussi's post as the 3rd-best philosophy blog post of the year. Which it may well be. But her ignorance of the issue and of Williams' philosophy is disheartening to say the least. Selections from her "commentary" on the post:
Abbas, I know you're reading this: please get a better judge next year. Churchland's "writing" about that post is flat-out embarassing. The appearance of such drivel from a contest's judge can only serve to confirm the cynical opinions of the enormous group of practising professional philosophers who think that internet philosophy is a waste of time.
And for the sake of full disclosure: no post of mine was up for judgment by Churchland. The reason I'm writing about this is that one of my favourite websites has put together a spectacularly good competition, a competition that will move philosophy on the internet forward by leaps and bounds every year... unless it becomes a showcase for ignorance, in which case it undermines its own objectives.
Also, since he's dead, someone has to stand up for poor Bernie, y'know.
Speaking of great philosophers, Jussi Suikkanen is also an awesome philosopher, much more awesome than I am. Jussi posted an interesting question about Williams' account of reasons and thick concepts on the excellent PEA Soup blog. The question was quickly answered in the blog comments, but good on everyone for getting involved in Williams' work.
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| He's watching you. |
I mean, after all--I somehow feel I should mention this--Williams essentially remade moral philosophy during his career, proposing arguments, distinctions, concepts and thought-experiments that play a dominant role in ethical philosophizing today. I've taught him in 1st year classes, in 3rd-year classes, and in graduate seminars. In a month, there is a conference on his work featuring Martha Nussbaum and Jonathan Lear. No-one in the field would deny his importance. Except, maybe, Patricia Churchland, who appears to know about as much about Williams as I do about basket-weaving. Straight up: this ignorance is inexcusable. After all, Churchland is an A-list philosopher who has recently written a book on morality (and, you guessed it, neuroscience).
She chose Jussi's post as the 3rd-best philosophy blog post of the year. Which it may well be. But her ignorance of the issue and of Williams' philosophy is disheartening to say the least. Selections from her "commentary" on the post:
Hence, if you wanted to, I guess, you could say that being called a coward provided you with a reason to stiffen your spine. Or a motive? Whatever."Reasons? Motives? What's the difference? Who knows? Whatever."
Obviously not all humans respond with negative affect to disapproval. It may be because they have no respect for the person judging, or perhaps because their current affective state blocks the response, or even because their brain is such that they have abnormal social responses in general, not merely transiently."I'm going to babble randomly about responding to disapproval without connecting my thoughts to the question at hand. Then I'm going to throw in the word 'brain', because I am Patricia Churchland."
Or sometimes what you may regard as a negative epithet, I do not — e.g. “pragmatist”, “feminist”.OMG, SO true! It's like how "bad" used to mean, like, bad, you know, but then Michael Jackson wrote "Bad" and people started using it to mean good or cool? Isn't that weird?
Abbas, I know you're reading this: please get a better judge next year. Churchland's "writing" about that post is flat-out embarassing. The appearance of such drivel from a contest's judge can only serve to confirm the cynical opinions of the enormous group of practising professional philosophers who think that internet philosophy is a waste of time.
And for the sake of full disclosure: no post of mine was up for judgment by Churchland. The reason I'm writing about this is that one of my favourite websites has put together a spectacularly good competition, a competition that will move philosophy on the internet forward by leaps and bounds every year... unless it becomes a showcase for ignorance, in which case it undermines its own objectives.
Also, since he's dead, someone has to stand up for poor Bernie, y'know.
1 comments:
Sadly, "Philosopher Gets Philosophy Wrong" happens too often to make the headlines anymore.
But, that's what you get when philosophers get physics-envy, and as the leading proponents of eliminative materialism, it's hard to name two philosophers who have fallen harder for scientism than the Churchlands.
Interesting how the other two big eliminativists I can think of, Richard Rorty and Paul Feyerabend, went on to become two of the most prominant (and hated) critics of modern philosophy.
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