Posts by Steve Parks
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Fox the new liberals?
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-19-2009/fox-news--the-new-liberals
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I'd always had the idea Objectivist philosophy was bunk but I didn't realise they needed to invent their own logic to not prove their point with.
As an objectivist (small ' o ') I always assumed (even though I hadn't read much of Rand's philosophy) that I had a similar metaphysical and epistemological stance as Objectivists, and we just differed on some moral and political conclusions (especially environmental and economic matters). So yeah, I was surprised to find Perigo making the argument he did in reply to Nola's first response. I didn't realise they had an idiosyncratic approach to logic.
To be fair, however, it does seem to be something that's contested within Objectivist circles. As Kelley said, "standard" logic was "compatible with Objectivist views about knowledge."
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The Free Radical and SOLO sites are pretty hard to search but here is the beginning of the debate:
http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/debate/intro.php
http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/debate/nola1.php
http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/debate/perigo2.phpThey go on for a while; there doesn't appear to be an index of the posts but I think it stops at about Perigo 6 and Nola 6.
Thanks. I since figured to do an Advanced Search on the domain, and came up with the full list.
That was both interesting and very frustrating. Lindsay Perigo simply failed to understand basic PHIL 101 level logic, and so Robert Nola had to explain it, and Perigo continued to simply not get it. It made the other aspects of the debate (potentially the more interesting) almost redundant, as Nola patiently tried to explain Perigo's misunderstandings around logic. Basic logic.
Even Libertarian David Kelley tried to get Perigo to understand what philosophers' mean when they say an argument is "valid", but he just didn't get it.
As Nola basically said, what more can you say?
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And IBD didn't really correct the claim. They just pretended they didn't make it.
True. Well, they kinda admitted to a mistake, in a quite laughable way:
Editor's Note: This version corrects the original editorial which implied that physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge, did not live in the UK.
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Whenever I think of Lindsay Perigo I think of the correspondence he had with Robert Nola a few years ago, in which Perigo demonstrated that he and a proper understanding of arguments are not acquainted.
Don't happen to have a link to that? Or know where I could find it - is it in The Free Redical?
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Thanks for that link, I/S.
From the Investors Business Daily editorial (before they corrected it):
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
Jay Brookman then points out:
That would be Stephen Hawking, British professor, who was born in the UK and has lived there for his whole life.
Hilarious.
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The collective we, being NZ, the other we being those of us able to type on wee keyboards and discuss the planet without having to worry about a wee glass of water or where it ultimately ends up,and whether or not we can wee.
We are amused.
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Then after SOLO's response to the PM's Science Advisor we all have to be really polite for a bit.
I looked up SOLO's website because I didn't know who they were initially. I see it's the old NZ Libertarian lot, under the web-name Sense of Life Objectivists, that press release having been written by SOLO contributor Greg Davis.
I had a look at some of the other blogs, and whoa! is Lyndsay Perigo in a snot...
...I still get berated for being true to myself on it [his website]. For being disgusted by someone who "suspends" (i.e. betrays) his principles to root for Obama, arguably the most evil man on the planet right now;
Yep, one could make that argument, I suppose. It's convincing, if you're the sort to find Greg's arguments against Gluckman convincing: "Expert advice, my arse."
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That's just confused me more. The last / in the URL should become a |? Or do I add, as I thought I did, a | to the end of the URL?
No, the vertical line "|" goes between the url and the text. It's in the instructions to the left of the post window but I admit it's maybe not easy to see.
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This is an important contribution to the exorcism thing, with a few other precedents described.
That was an interesting case. But the main cause for questioning the original guilty verdict was that the jury probably should have been directed to consider the victims religious beliefs, or more particularly her consent based on those beliefs to the procedure. It’s a tricky one because it looks like they made it rather difficult for her to withdraw consent once the process of “exorcism” was underway.
In the Janet Moses case, she likely had a mental illness, and so probably could not (meaningfully) consent.
I'm not sure whether the "is it a genuine cultural practice or not" line of enquiry is a useful one. At what point does the circle of people who believe in supernatural effect X become so small that the criminal law can take precedence?
The criminal law should always take precedence, regardless of whether people sincerely believe in supernatural effect X, or whatever cultural or religious tradition. Whether the accused genuinely believed they were doing good by the victim might come into it in some cases, as a mitigating factor, though.