WOO!

Dana, that RULES!

If you want to email me, I am perfectly willing to bug my friend from there for more details (his parents still live there, as do his in-laws), so I can get you started with Where Things That Rule Live. Other than DANA, who will of course live in the AWESOME HOUSE that she will NO DOUBT GET, PEOPLE.

Ahem.

Pardon my caps.

Congratulations bon bon and bob bob! Congratulations Dana and DH!

And I love that meara is pimping the Pacific Northwest ... from Indianapolis (it IS Indianapolis, isn't it? or are you still in Texas?)

bon bon! Ask Bob Bob's opinon on Simon Critchley.

I don't know much about Critchley, as he's in the "Continental" tradition (people like Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida) and I'm in the "analytic" one (people like Frege, Bertrand Russell, Popper, Quine, and Kripke). So take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt.

I think he's best at popularizing, rather than producing independent research. He apparently likes to make grand pronouncements about both Continental and analytic philosophy, saying of the former:

The goal of philosophy in the continental tradition is emancipation, whether individual or societal[.]

The problem with this statement is that only some continental philosophy is about this. Husserl, for example, does not concern himself with liberation. I'm guessing that Heidegger doesn't as well. (And this two are two of the four most important continental philosophers, so that's a rather big gap.)

He says of analytic philosophy:

What I dislike most about [analytic] philosophers is the idea that they think because they are smart as philosophers they have nothing to learn from anybody else. You find this repeatedly. I'd argue that they've got lots to learn, not just from cognitive scientists, but from lawyers, historians, anthropologists and sundry others.

The problem with this is that analytic philosophy, especially over the last thirty years, has done lots of interdisciplinary work. In fact, there's a whole burgeoning field of philosophy, "experimental philosophy", which is all about uniting the techniques of psychology with philosophy.

(I get Critchley's quotes from this: [link]

Overall, I'd take what Critichley says with a grain of salt, though I don't think he's a bad philosopher.

I forgot to congratulate Dana and her DH earlier...congrats! Great news!

Overall, I'd take what Critichley says with a grain of salt, though I don't think he's a bad philosopher.

Thanks, bob bob! And congratulations on the job/move/crazylifechanges.

Those do seem to be sweeping generalizations, and more obfuscating than illuminating.

Of course, now I want to know: Who is a bad philosopher?

I'm not so hot at philosophizing.

And I love that meara is pimping the Pacific Northwest ... from Indianapolis (it IS Indianapolis, isn't it? or are you still in Texas?)

Yep, Indy. But I can still pimp my new city! It's not like I'm STAYING in Indy. Or CHOOSING to be here!! It's not like THIS is the city where I walk around and turn a corner every few feet and go "DAMN, it's pretty here!!!"

Congrats Dana and DH and bon bon and bob bob! Woot for big life changiness and jobs, etc.

DH and I are going out tonight--we've been married for 14 years today. I still can't quite get over that amount of time. Our marriage is old enough to be a freshman in high school.

I have to say bob bob, that after reading Leiter's blog he comes off as extremely axe-grindy. That was some serious academic hair-pulling and slapfighting there. (Leiter's attempt to link Derrida and Reaganism seemed pretty specious, though.)

Our marriage is old enough to be a freshman in high school.

Does that mean your marriage is pimply, prone to B.O. and subject to wild mood swings?