Rolling Philosophy

which is a shame, because i thought "faith of the faithless" was pretty good and worth engaging with. getting tired of so many stupid cash-ins from these guys (uh, philosophers). i swear half of the new books i read come across as a collection of semi-edited notes.

it probably depends on who you're reading. ray brassier has only put out one book and is working on a new one but it's been seven years.

well brassier, from the little ive read of him and some interviews, certainly strikes me as more serious than many. glad he's taking his time.

if i ever get to write another one (unlikely) i'd like to take 10 years or so on it. people who publish a lot of frivolous garbage should be frowned upon.

I've been wanting to check out that Critchley book. I've been dipping into Cavell's Disowning Knowledge lately, his essays on skepticism in Shakespeare. His essay on Hamlet is so short and sketchy that it doesn't really establish itself as not-crazy. Was wondering if Critchley took it up at all.

There are a few other books out there on skepticism in Shakespeare that might do better. Millicent Bell's Shakespeare's Tragic Skepticism looks good.

they don't bring up cavell except once. cavell on shakespeare >>>> the critchley book.

will check out those others though!

honestly i rarely find anything by a uk 'continental' type, esp. the pop variety, to be very substantial. their weird mix of matter-of-factness and across-the-board, nonspecific endorsement of french/german ideas, terminology, etc. makes them come across as unserious. posturing.

there's definitely a thing with philosophers getting some kind of non-academic popularity and then having the pressure / feeling the desire to just churn out new book after new book at the expense of actually doing serious work and having any new thoughts, the zizeks and rancières of the world just repeating themselves into eternity. tbh i don't think there are too many people who have a good level of popularity and aren't doing that. critchley's a slightly different model in that every couple of years he decides to write about something completely different and never really gets beyond his shallow beginnings before finding a new fancy.

good post

imagine of zizek had a handful of books instead? each of which was focused, etc.

j. otm. i think that's exactly it. anything substantial in the book came from those other sources i mentioned. maybe i've missed that aspect of SC or been taken in by it previously.

i don't know that he's different from a lot of more academic uk academics in that regard, he's just more popular/less proximate to their (style of) debates

critchley is the worst for that. his book of dead philosophers is a similarly good/interesting idea that he doesnt really pull off

oh yeah I also forgot about that weird ny times piece he wrote about his pink shirt.

I did learn from the book that apparently Joyce gave something like a 12 part lecture series on Hamlet but it's been lost. that was something, I bet.

that's a lot of algebra

oh yeah I also forgot about that weird ny times piece he wrote about his pink shirt.

― ryan, Wednesday, April 16, 2014 12:43 PM

he's in charge of their "the stone" blog or blog section, i think

i've only read infinitely demanding

i am re-reading after finitude and it's p good so far

now thar's a guy who certainly hasn't gotten onto the overproduction bandwagon.

there's the divine inexistence, most of which is unpublished, then after finitude, and a book on mallarme in addition to some articles.

unless i'm wrong and there's something else

that being said, yes, this book does not fall into the category of books described upthread

xp that's right i think. i kinda wonder if he's having trouble finishing things - as i understand it he's been turning down various invitations for conferences, visiting professorships etc for about five years now, on the basis of having dedicated himself to getting the ongoing project done.

New book on Plato for a general audience from Rebecca Goldstein with rave reviews from Hilary Putnam among others.

wary

yeah, the title does not inspire confidence.

Never read anything from her after The Mind-Body Problem. But take Hilary Putnam endorsement seriously.

Just because it's Putnam? Or because he does not give out endorsements lightly?

Both

Just read the synopsis -- sounds interesting. The style in some ways echos Sandel's "What Money Can't Buy", where Sandel toured the book and introduced the subject matter to a lay audience at town hall like meetings across America.

academic luminaries blurb books for the same vain and self-serving reasons that everyone else does, i don't see why putnam should be any different

sometimes you go back to those after finishing the book and get suspicious that the blurber may not have read it!

i am reviewing a book of that sort right now : /

I'll take that into account, thanks. But having taking that into account, I am still left with: who am I more likely to believe, an academic luminary whose work I have enjoyed and appreciated who has navigated gracefully through various thorny labyrinths over decades, or the reflex scepticism of ilxor j., who seems like he might be on to something now and then although I haven't been able to put the effort in yet to find out exactly what.

the fact that you think the question facing you is one of choosing between me and academic luminary hilary putnam does suggest that you could stand to read some plato. i suggest the protagoras.

it shouldn't be too hard to figure out if it's shit or not. pick it up and leaf through it a bit.

markers razor

i feel like i have this weird subconscious system for filtering through books.

probably some mixture of looking at the writer, publisher, excerpts. not sure.

Everyone can do with reading more Plato.

Took a humanities survey course during long ago freshman year nicknamed "From Plato to NATO," isn't that enough?

I have reviewed books that later ended up as blurbs on publisher websites & amazon publisher provided text for books. not sure what I think about that since the publishers don't ask my permission to use my review in ad copy

I am not HP although we've met a couple of times

Were you able to pierce the veil, see through the facade?

Blurbs here: http://www.rebeccagoldstein.com/publications/plato-googleplex-why-philosophy-won%E2%80%99t-go-away

plato was responsible for buzz

Aldrin? Dr. Rendezvous?

google

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_buzz