A two-for-one Molinari/C4SS/ALL punch in Counterpunch today!
Kevin Carson explains why free-marketers should be Occupiers.
Sheldon Richman explains why Occupiers should be free-marketers.
In other news, Ross Kenyon’s Occupational activities continue to make the local paper and frighten Republicans.
Our quest for world domination continues to continue ….
Our quest for world domination continues!
The new Avengers trailer is here. It looks like Tony Stark has all the best lines. That’s fine with me.
I’m not yet a huge fan of how Edward Norton lost control and turned into Mark Ruffalo, but we’ll see.
So, we know from the trailer that Loki is involved; and we know from the post-credits sequence in Thor that the cosmic hypercube from Captain America is also involved. But the trailer also features what looks like a small spaceship, which I don’t figure to be Loki’s ride. Rumors tend Skrullward, but then again they would.
Today I learned (from an Egyptian Students’ Association poster – apparently verified here) that the Library of Alexandria (the current one, obviously) houses the sole backup copy of the Internet Archive.
Why yes, said the first little pig, I’m going to rebuild my house, and I’m using all straw again.
For my readers in the Auburn area: the Auburn Philosophy Club will be hosting a panel discussion on the subject of “The State” this coming Wednesday, October 12th, 5:00-7:00 p.m., at the Gnu’s Room (the used bookstore and coffeeshop next to Amsterdam Café, near the intersection of Samford and South Gay; map here). The choice of topic is partly in honour of the PPE (philosophy / poli sci / econ) program we’re developing.
There’ll be brief presentations from two or three faculty members (including your humble correspondent) and two or three students, followed by general discussion. (My presentation will focus on how, contra Locke, the undesirability of people being judges in their own case is actually an argument against the state, not for it.)
These meetings tend to be fairly popular, and the Gnu’s Room’s meeting space is not exactly enormous, so those interested should try to arrive early to be sure of finding a seat. (Also make sure to try the coffee – it’s the best in town.)
I finally paid out the drakhmas to get the proceedings (both print and electronic, so over $100 total) of the Athens conference I went to in 2008. Here’s my contribution: “Thrasymachus and the Relational Conception of Authority” (in Patricia Hanna, ed., An Anthology of Philosophical Studies, vol. 3 (Athens: Athens Institute for Education and Research, 2009), pp. 27-36).
And here’s the abstract:
Thrasymachus defines justice as the interest of the stronger/rulers. Hence one might expect him to hold that when the stronger/rulers act in their own interest, they are being just. Yet Thrasymachus says just the opposite – that when the stronger/rulers act in their own interest, they are being unjust. This apparent inconsistency is to be explained by Thrasymachus’s having a relational conception of the notion of stronger/ruler; to act in the interest of the stronger/ruler is to act in the interest of someone stronger-than-oneself, of a ruler-over-oneself. Hence when a subject acts to benefit the ruler, he acts justly, by putting a superior’s interests before his own; but when the ruler acts in his own interest, he acts unjustly, since he pursues his own interests and defers to no superior.
This is something I think almost everyone who teaches Plato’s Republic gets wrong.