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A Commentary on the Passing Scene by Robert Paul Wolff rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
My Stuff
https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rwolff_umass_edu/EkxJV79tnlBDol82i7bXs7gBAUHadkylrmLgWbXv2nYq_A?e=UcbbW0
Coming Soon:
The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.
NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."
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Philosopher's Stone
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- CALLING ALL LURKERS
- WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, THERE IS ALWAYS PUNDITRY
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- NEW FRIDAY LISTS #1
- LAST CHANCE
- REMINDER
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- OH, BY THE WAY
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- YOU NEVER KNOW...
- LIFE'S SMALL PLEASURES
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About Me
- Robert Paul Wolff
- As I observed in one of my books, in politics I am an anarchist, in religion I am an atheist, and in economics I am a Marxist. I am also, rather more importantly, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a violist.
8 comments:
That dork is Bryan Magee, who probably did more through his BBC interviews with famous philosophers to get a mass audience for philosophy than any other person in Anglo-Saxon countries at least.
Obviously, Magee is not Chomsky's intellectual match, but who of us is?
Magee wrote a fairly well considered book on Schopenhauer by the way.
Wikipedia profile of Magee.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Magee
Additionally, Magee’s intellectual autobiography, Confessions of a Philosopher, is a delightful and stimulating jaunt through the Western philosophical tradition. He writes with with wit and passion and, as Wallerstein notes, is gifted at making accesible otherwise complex and often ponderous philosophical ideas and arguments. A man after your own heart, professor!
I've listened to hours and hours of chomsky on YouTube, and I've probably only scratched the surface of the library of what's there.
But eventually, I got frustrated with his responses to questions of free will and determinism. I couldn't understand how someone so smart could so completely misunderstand the question. "Of course we have free will, for one necessarily must have it in order to come to the conclusion that he doesn't." What! I couldn't believe it, so I gave up on Chomsky.
This interview seems different though. I don't exactly know what he's saying here, so I'm gonna try to parse it again later when I'm awake. Does it have implications on the issue of determinism? I just don't understand how philosophers spend time talking about anything without addressing this obvious issue of free will....
The Chomsky quote about free will does seem a bit Scholastic, but how does it demonstrate that he so egregiously misunderstands the question?
I think Chomsky's take on free will is eminently practical. Strictly speaking, I've long found determinism persuasive as a philosophical thesis, but I'm also of the mind that it doesn't matter - we feel that we're free, and I can't see a way around that phenomenology.
My favorite take on free will is this Dinosaur Comics strip.
A dork?
Here is a recent story about Magee, now 89 years of age:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/04/even-old-age-philosopher-bryan-magee-remains-wonder-struck-ultimate-questions
I have a stake in the outcome of this dispute, but I'd like to think that being a dork and being a swell guy are not mutually exclusive.
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