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This day in history
On this day in Welsh history...nothing happened! So says the Welsh Calendar.http://welshcalendar.blogspot.com/2008/12/maymai.htmlBut, and it's a big "but", the 18th was Bertrand Russell's birthday!As a present to myself, I have just bought another copy of "Unpopular Essays", my well-worn copy having evaporated.What a rare man. A giant of mathematics and philosophy who single-handedly challenged mathematical empiricism, Aristotle, and the Christian Church, he also had the courage of his political convictions. Years after getting kicked out of Trinity College and being thrown into Brixton Prison for his anti-war protests, he took on both the Soviet Union and the United States for their nuclear proliferation, conquest of sovereign nations, and the Viet Nam war.
For head colds, my friends in Russia swore by vodka in which were steeped whole peppercorns. Maybe because the resulting stomach cramps took their minds off of the cold. In any case, I wish you a speedy recovery and it's now time for me to go and drink some alcohol, as well. For purely medicinal purposes, as with you, I'm sure.I seem to remember that people like I. A. Richards and A. J. Ayers actually ended up admitting that positivism was doomed to failure. It seems naive nowadays to suggest that there are only "synthetic" statements, "analytical" statements, and that all else is literally non-sense. There are so many kinds of experience, and all of them valid, that the Vienna school's strait-jacket seems now to be to be comically arrogant. At least to this arm-chair general.
No worries mate....I didn't take offence. Sorry if I gave that impression. I plead in my defense a lack of concentration occasioned by a vicious headcold which is not proving amenable to treatment with a combination of aspirins and raw garlic. Soooooo...I shall apply to my good friend alcohol tonight for a surefire remedy.RE: 'logical positivism'....Agreed. It always appeared to me that they were constructing a logic of 'dead' things...words and symbols etc. If we are going to attempt anything more ambitious it seems that categories like 'essence' and 'appearance' and all that Aristotelian and Hegelian baggage are unavoidable. Maybe there is a forum thread in this. Apart from Bertie though, I cant think of many other Welsh philosophers although there was at least one Neo-Hegelian whose name escapes me at the moment.
No criticism of you at ALL, Ceri! I was just making a funny, a la Monty Python: "Today...Nothing happened!"I set up a WordPress blog, and I just couldn't maintain it and keep a paying job at the same time. So I've had a taste of how much effort has to go into such a project. Anything you do is appreciated, I'm sure, by all the members of this network.As for myself, I get tired of my own skepticism. A severely limited epistemology doesn't help me fix things at work, and it doesn't make me a happier person, either. Russell and Whitehead with great difficulty created rigorous mathematical proofs for things like "1+1=2". Most of us just don't live in that rarefied atmosphere, and in everyday life, I pick a tomato from my garden and admit that it does indeed have a delectable "tomato-ness".
Mea Culpa....not an intentional oversight I can assure you. I look forward to the day when i have some spare time to go back and finish that project off. At the moment it is very much a work in progress and its full of gaping holes. If you can think of any more omissions please let me know ad one day soon i'll get round to plugging the gaps.As for Bertie....I greatly admire his stance on political and religious issues but philosophically I still count myself as something of an 'essentialist'. Still perhaps all that kind of thing belongs in a Forum discussion somewhere.