Paul Franco | Lightnews

Turkbert Cransauceko @albertburneko.bsky.social · 16h

all pies are good. simply do not say to me that any pies are bad. i do not even want to know about the kind of life that would so warp a person as to think any pie is bad

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 18h

Philosophy used to be so much cooler.

archive.org/details/bim_...

A philosophical endeavour towards the defence of the being of witches ... 1666 : Glanvill, Joseph : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

A philosophical endeavour towards the defence of the being of witches ... 1666..Digitized from IA40310711-10.Previous issue:...

archive.org

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 3d

If you're a stranger sending me a reminder about something I didn't do, treat me like an adult and don't make it "friendly." First of all, I'm not your friend. Second of all, I know you're mad at me for not doing the thing you originally asked me to do. Drop the act, buddy.

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 6d

Spinoza (1677).

Brett Karlan @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social · 6d

Gonna try using facts and logic to argue my brain out of being sad, will report back with results

Brett Karlan @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social · 6d

Gonna try using facts and logic to argue my brain out of being sad, will report back with results

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 6d

Dover really knew how to make philosophy paperback covers.

Cover of book: Leibniz in red type. Underneath is author byline in all caps: Herbert Wilson Carr. Underneath that is a circle made up of individual squares with rounded corners (so not technically squares, but don't be a dick). Half of the squares are red. The other half is this neat greenish color. The squares recall Leibniz's monads, though there's not a chief monad to be found in the image (as far as I can tell).

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 10d

Interviewer: Can you explain this five year gap in your resume?

Me: I did Kant's silent decade in half the time.

Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 11d

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume?

Bertrand Russell: I spent months staring at a blank piece of paper.

Dr. Tea, Cake, & Revolution. @witwarrior.bsky.social · Dec 20

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume?

Historian: That page was burned in the Library of Alexandria, and no modern copies survive.

Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 11d

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume?

Bertrand Russell: I spent months staring at a blank piece of paper.

Dr. Tea, Cake, & Revolution. @witwarrior.bsky.social · Dec 20

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume?

Historian: That page was burned in the Library of Alexandria, and no modern copies survive.

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 11d

ICYMI: A philosopher withdrew from a recent tenure-track appointment at Texas A&M and wrote about it in the Chronicle on October 9th.

www.chronicle.com/article/why-...

Opinion | Why I Withdrew From My Dream Job

At Texas A&M, politicians, not professors, decide what is taught in classrooms.

www.chronicle.com

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 12d

Fodor and Carnap are in the Epstein files (albeit mentioned by Noam Chomsky).

Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 13d

Clearly something of a relationship here.

There are several other emails, in which Chomsky entertains Epstein's questions. Here's a Hanukkah message where he asks about multidimensional linguistic models and jokes that Trump has written more books than he's read.

Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 13d

Clearly something of a relationship here.

There are several other emails, in which Chomsky entertains Epstein's questions. Here's a Hanukkah message where he asks about multidimensional linguistic models and jokes that Trump has written more books than he's read.

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 13d

Wittgenstein is in the Epstein files.

Tim Dickinson @timdickinson.bsky.social · 13d

it keeps going...

Tim Dickinson @timdickinson.bsky.social · 13d

it keeps going...

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 15d

Is it this one by Kai Milanovich?

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Distinguishing Situated Knowledge and Standpoint Theory: Defending the Achievement Thesis | Hypatia | Cambridge Core

Distinguishing Situated Knowledge and Standpoint Theory: Defending the Achievement Thesis

www.cambridge.org

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 15d

Mary Hesse on "the political aspect of...the Vienna Circle" and why analytic philosophers had "lost the urgency" of epistemological questions given that they "divorced their philosophy from ideological and practical interests" (1980, xiii).

archive.org/details/revo...

The revival of metaphysical realism after decades of positivism is one of the most remarkable features of current analytic philosophy. It may perhaps be traced to a fundamental difference of interest between analytic philosophers of the present generation and those who founded the positivist schools of epistemology. The difference may briefly be expressed by saying that the latter were concerned with what we can now to be true and wished to repudiate metaphysical claims to knowledge, specially because these tended to be associated with Hegelian tradition not only in philosophy but also in authoritarian religion and politcs. Liberalism and social democracy, the Vienna positivists though, were better defended in association with naturalistic knowledge. Modern analytic philosophers...have generally divorced their philosophical from their ideological and practical interests, and have therefore lost the urgency of the question 'How can we know?'

Her reference: "R.S. Cohen, 'Neurath, Otto'...It is remarkable how little of the political aspect of the thought of the Vienna Circle was mentioned in connection with its philosophical history until recently." She tells the reader to contrast the articles in The legacy of logical positivism with Janik and Toulmin's Wittgenstein's Vienna.

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 15d

A survey of North American grad students in history of science in 1970-1971 asked: "'Are there any works which are models, methodologically, of the kind of scholarship you would like to do?"

www.jstor.org/stable/284483

We also tried to examine the range of interests and approaches by asking,
'Are there any works which are models, methodologically, of the kind of
scholarship you would like to do? (These can be papers, books, dissertations,
etc. and need not necessarily be works in history of science.)' We suspect that
people listed books they liked as often, or more often, than books whose
approach they wished to emulate. About one-third of the respondents (twenty-
five) did not reply to this question. Of those who did, thirteen cited the works
of Thomas Kuhn, who was mentioned far more frequently than any other
scholar except Alexandre Koyre, who was cited five times. Kuhn was cited
primarily for The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, although his Copernican
Revolution and his paper on energy conservation were also mentioned.6
Scholars whose works were cited by at least three respondents included: Ernst
Cassirer, Robert Merton, George Rosen, A. I. Sabra, Max Weber, and Lynn
White. Scholars mentioned by two students were: Stillman Drake, Charles
Gillispie, Mary Hesse, A. 0. Lovejoy, J. T. Merz, Derek Price, and Frances
Yates

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 17d

D.J. O'Connor in 1959 on "The danger of the now fashionable 'Let's not be beastly to metaphysics' movement."

www.jstor.org/stable/3748624

The danger of the now fashionable "Let's not be beastly to metaphysics"
movement is that it encourages the growth of irrationalism in philosophy.
Philosophy is nothing if it is not an exercise of reason. It is not a matter for
"sensitivity" or "imagination" or any of the other nebulous and euphemistic
disguises for intellectual muzziness. The philosophers who wrote these essays
are far too able and clear-headed to ignore this. But a sympathetic nostalgia
for metaphysics coupled with an admission of its logical bankruptcy may
encourage less able writers to believe that anything goes in philosophy. So
too may their habit of decorating their essays with quotations from Donne,
Eliot, Leopardi, Proust, Mrs. V. Woolf and the rest of the cultural circus of
the day. As models of philosophical writing, Aquinas, Spinoza, Russell or
Carnap are perhaps a little austere for present tastes. But at least they give
no encouragement to confuse philosophy with belles lettres.

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 17d

Thought maybe I needed to figure out microfilm, but the Internet Archive is a modern marvel that makes it possible to find issues of The Listener from 1951 in which Michael Polyani criticizes Stephen Toulmin's interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics.

archive.org/details/list...

Sir. I agree with Mr Toulmin in his talk published in the Listener of March 8, that we should not worry about the running-down of the universe--for I think we have not enough evidence for it--but I am disturbed by the methods of his argument. Mr Toulmin suggests that there is a logical impossibility involved in applying the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the universe, and he illustrates this by the impossibility of weight fire. He ascribes this impossibility to the fact that in our present system of chemical classification, the word 'fire' does not figure as the name of a stuff'. But surely, whatever limitations are imposed on the verbal context in which we may use the word 'fire' are derived from our knowledge of fire, and it is therefore wholly circular to derive any knowledge about fire from the way the word 'fire' may be used. In playing with 'fire' Mr Toulmin is playing with fire; his linguistic critique, bent on casting out verbalism, lets it in with a vengeance." Polanyi continues to note the half a dozen formulations of the second law of thermodynamics.

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 17d

Was it history or philosophy of science that had to make alimony payments after the divorce? Did they ever discuss staying together for the kids, Indy and Pitt? Who got to stay friends with Stephen Toulmin? Too many unanswered questions in HOHAPOS.

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 18d

For now!

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 18d

I lied. The actual best part is that once you have all the individual chapters combined, you then have to delete the JSTOR title page that is at the beginning of all the individual chapters.

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 18d

The best part of doing research is having to download individual chapters of works on JSTOR or OxfordOnline or whatevs and combining them into a PDF. (Note: I understand I can go to the stacks for a physical copy in which chapters are bound together between two covers in something called a "book".)

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 18d

The best part of doing research is having to download individual chapters of works on JSTOR or OxfordOnline or whatevs and combining them into a PDF. (Note: I understand I can go to the stacks for a physical copy in which chapters are bound together between two covers in something called a "book".)

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 18d

BREAKING: Quad cherry blossom trees also nice in Fall.

View of UW Quad from an office. On left is building with a little gargoyley dude hanging out. Then some bright orange cherry blossom trees. On the right is a big California redwood.

A different view of the cherry blossom trees with slightly fewer leaves, but still bright orange. Gray skies, sun not visible and won't be for like three more months.

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 19d

<THREAD> I’m now hearing this meme that says speech acts have to be things we do with words and can't be pictures, middle fingers, sandwiches, etc.

Guys. It’s time for some speech act theory.

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 19d

is a sandwich a speech act

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 19d

is a sandwich a speech act

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 19d

Lord, give me the strength to not make a 6-7 reference in my lecture for college students today.

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 21d

If you have grad students working on climate change and global justice, please share with them this call for abstracts for a conference put on by grad students in the University of Washington's philosophy department.

philevents.org/event/show/1...

Climate Change and Global Justice

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Washington, Seattle is proud to announce a graduate conference titled Climate Change and Global Justice to be held on the UW Seattle campus on April 1...

philevents.org

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 21d

I hope my Cartesian wife will read the Ethics and be moved by what I was moved by and convert to Spinozism already.

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 24d

There might be clues in this entry by Paul Meehl. He was a close associate of Feigl's at Minnesota (and Feyerabend probably knew of Meehl's work given the time he spent at the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science).

meehl.umn.edu/sites/meehl....

meehl.umn.edu

Paul L. Franco @loadofbunk.bsky.social · 25d

Feigl four years after the previous quote: "There seems to be now a fair amount of evidence for the occurrence of mental telepathy and clairvoyance."

There seems to be now a fair amount of evidence f o r the occurrence of mental
telepathy and clairvoyance. It is not likely that all this evidence can
be explained away as due to experimental errors, statistical miscalcula-
scientific knowledge. Further research is urgently needed in this con-
troversial field. But any theological conclusions seem to me, to put it
mildly, entirely premature.

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