J.S. Mill on Why We Debate

"However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth."

Fall Reading List

This is completely delayed, but better late than never...

1. Equality and Partiality -- Thomas Nagel
2. Economix: How and Why Our Economy Works (And Doesn't Work) -- Michael Goodwin & Dan E. Burr
3. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth -- Apostolos Doxiadis & Christos H. Papadimitriou & Alecos Papadatos & Annie Di Donna 
4. Living High and Letting Die -- Peter Unger

My list is short this time around because I have been busy applying for graduate school. 

Spring 2012 Reading List

1. The Body Politic -- Jonathan D. Moreno
2. Bioethics -- edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller Jr., Jeffrey Paul* 
3. Anti-Oedipus : Capitalism and Schizophrenia -- Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guitattari
4. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia -- Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guitattari
5. Security, Territory, and Population -- Michel Foucault*
6. The Birth of Biopolitics -- Michael Foucault* 
7. Anarchy, State, and Utopia -- Robert Nozick* 
8. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere -- Jurgen Habermas* 
9. The Structure of Scientific Revolution -- Thomas Kuhn* 
10. Power (an anthology) -- Michel Foucault* 
11. Being and Time -- Martin Heidegger* 
12. Being and Nothingness -- Jean-Paul Sartre * 
13. Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President -- Ron Suskind* 
14. My Life -- Bill Clinton* 
15. ? 

* - Carried over from the Winter

Nothing ever changes: In the past, Western society was ridden with religious wars between different sects of Christianity; now, Western Universities are ridden with religious wars between academic departments--primarily divided between science and the humanities.

A digital post-it note

If the project of neurophilosophy is to bridge neuroscience with philosophy of mind, then I would like to propose that the project of neuroethics be to bridge behavioral psychology with moral philosophy.

I need to do some research to see the extent to which any work has been done on any translational reductive projects that show how what we conceptualize as "moral rules" are just discrete habitual behaviors.



"Ethics is a tool created, not given or discovered."

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/02/14/3430459.htm

All the world is a stage and I've grown tired of playing the villain--not to mention such a minor villain at that!

Winter Reading List

1. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance -- Robert Pirsig
2. The Master and Margarita -- Mikhail Bulgakov (re-read) 
3. Exile and the Kingdom -- Albert Camus 
4. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World -- Haruki Murakami 
5. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature -- Richard Rorty (re-read)
6. Civilization and its Discontents -- Sigmund Freud (re-read) 
7. Morality and Our Complicated Form of Life -- Peg O'Connor 
8. American Nietzsche -- Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen 
9. On What Matters -- Derek Parfit 
10. Reasons and Persons -- Derek Parfit 
11. Bioethics -- edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller Jr., Jeffrey Paul 
12. Godel, Escher, Bach -- Douglas Hofstadter* 
13. The Age of Spiritual Machines -- Ray Kurzweil* 
14. Sister Citizen -- Melissa Harris Perry* 
15. Anarchy, State, and Utopia -- Robert Nozick* 
16. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere -- Jurgen Habermas* 
17. The Structure of Scientific Revolution -- Thomas Kuhn* 
18. Security, Territory, and Population -- Michel Foucault
19. The Birth of Biopolitics -- Michael Foucault* 
20. Power (an anthology) -- Michel Foucault* 
21. Being and Time -- Martin Heidegger* 
22. Being and Nothingness -- Jean-Paul Sartre * 
23. Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President -- Ron Suskind* 
24. My Life -- Bill Clinton* 
25. ? 

* - Carried over from the Fall