The photo is of Elizabeth Anscombe speaking on the occasion of her receipt of an honorary degree at the University of Navarra.'The Anscombe Forum is an annual event designed to explore the work of G.E.M. Anscombe in particular and Catholic thought in general.' (via LGH)
Richard Marshall interviews Joseph Raz.
The online journal Diametros hosts a collection of articles on the radical enlightenment. It includes a paper by Jonathan Israel.
Jane O'Grady's Guardian obits of several English philosophers (Geach, Goldie, Quinton, etc.).
Jonathan Glover's site is a real joy. I especially like the part called 'Travesties and Encounters', with anecdotes about Oakeshott, Waugh, and this bit about Bomber Harris and Rev. John Collins:
John Collins invited the Minister of Aircraft Production, Sir Stafford Cripps [grandfather of philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah], to give a talk on the subject "Is God My co-pilot?". Cripps argued that officers should only send men on bombing raids which they thought were morally as well as militarily justified. Sir Arthur Harris replied by arranging a lecture on "The Ethics of Bombing". This was given by T.D. ("Harry") Weldon. a Fellow in Philosophy at Magdalen College, Oxford. ... He was Personal Staff Officer to Sir Arthur Harris in Bomber Command and drafted the communications Harris sent to the Cabinet and the Air Ministry. Predictably, his talk was rather different from that given by Cripps. When Weldon had finished, Collins asked whether Weldon had not taken his subject to be "The Bombing of Ethics"?On Vimeo, Robert Pippin on 'Critical Theory as Political Philosophy? Reflections on Honneth and Hegelianism'.
Here are four of my favorite replies to The Edge's question, 'What scientific idea is ready for retirement?'
Martin Rees: We'll Never Hit Barriers To Scientific Understanding.
Donald G. Hoffman: Truer Perceptions Are Fitter Perceptions.
Joel & Ian Gold: Mental Illness is Nothing But Brain Illness.In the New York Times, Gary Greenberg reviews the Gold bros' new book:
What is in tatters for T.S.D. [Truman Show Delusion] patients is something crucial to negotiating social life, and that, according to the Golds, is the primary purpose toward which our big brains have evolved: the ability to read other people’s intentions or, as cognitive scientists put it, to have a theory of mind.
Leo Coleman on the recent English translation of Vincent Descombes' The Institutions of Meaning: a Defense of Anthropological Holism. The same book is reviewed by Jocelyn Benoist.
Stéphane Haber reviews Descombes' Les embarras de l'identité (Identity's Difficulties). Descombes replies (beneath Haber's review).
Samuel Scheffler is interviewed about his book Death and the Afterlife:
What is not frequently noticed is that our practices of valuing and finding meaning in our lives draw upon the presumption that others will outlive us, that there will be generations of human beings continuing into the future. One way to grasp the significance of this presumption is to imagine a scenario in which we know that humanity has no future. How would this knowledge affect our lives in the present?Physicist and novelist Alan Lightman on 'My Own Personal Nothingness'.
Michael Saler reviews physicist Marcelo Gleiser's book The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning. John Gribbin also reviews Gleiser's book.
John Horgan interviews philosophical physicists George Ellis and Carlo Rovelli.
