I just saw J. K. Rowling interviewed on Olbermann. I recognised the room in which the interview took place, because I was in it last year! Although they didn’t say it, it was obviously the armory room in Edinburgh Castle. When I was there a docent in historical garb was playing the role of military recruiter.
Tag Archives | Personal
News from Philosophy Land
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
1. The Social Philosophy and Policy Center’s latest anthology is out this month (published simultaneously as the current issue of Social Philosophy & Policy and as a stand-alone book titled Freedom, Reason, and the Polis: Essays in Ancient Greek Political Philosophy), with chapters on various aspects of the classical political tradition by Carrie-Ann Biondi, Chris Bobonich, David Keyt, Richard Kraut, André Laks, Tony Long, Fred Miller, Gerasimos Santas, Chris Shields, Allan Silverman, C. C. W. Taylor, and your humble correspondent.
My own contribution is an essay titled “The Classical Roots of Radical Individualism,” in which I argue that on a variety of issues, from spontaneous order and the natural harmony of interests to hypothetical-imperative ethics and moralised conceptions of law, the libertarian tradition is developing themes from classical antiquity. Among the classical thinkers I discuss are Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, and Cicero; among the libertarians I discuss are Paine, Constant, Bastiat, Spencer, Andrews, Spooner, Tucker, Mises, Hayek, Rand, and Rothbard. In short, Austro-Athenian frenzy abounds!
2. The Alabama Philosophical Society (for which I’m vice-president this year and webmaster always) will meet about a month earlier than usual this fall, September 21-22, on the Gulf; the deadline for submitting a paper is thus likewise extra-early, August 7th. The keynote speaker is my old friend from IHS days, Andrew Melnyk. Details here. You don’t have to be an Alabamian to participate, so come on down!
A Show of Hands
According to this guy who was on The Colbert Report tonight, straight men and gay women are more likely to have
ring fingers longer than index fingers, while gay men and straight women are more likely to have index fingers longer than ring fingers. Result: I have gay hands!
Since, according to so many religious conservatives (see, e.g., here and here), we’re supposed to let our bodily parts define our moral obligations, does this mean I’m now morally obligated to become gay?
ALL You Can Hear, Part 2
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Just finished up the aforementioned interview, and an audio file is already available for download here!
A couple of points: a) Shawn Wilbur’s call unfortunately somehow got lost, so it’s just Wally Conger, Brad Spangler, and me. b) I don’t agree with Wally and Brad about voting being a form of aggression, but I didn’t feel strongly enough about my heresy on that particular point to take up time over it; that’s why I didn’t pipe up with a dissenting comment.
ALL You Can Hear
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
I and some fellow members of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left – specifically Wally Conger, Brad Spangler, and Shawn Wilbur – are scheduled to be interviewed on The Liberated Space tomorrow at 4:30 Pacific time (that’s 6:30 al-Abama time).
See Wally’s post for details.
From Athens to Auburn
This week I’m attending David Gordon’s excellent history of political philosophy seminar. So far he’s covered Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Hobbes.
Coming up: Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Mill, Spooner, Spencer, Rawls, Nozick, and Rothbard.
Check out the audio files here.