UPDATE #2: I’ll be on the Herd today at 1:40 pm EDT.
I’m mostly recovered from what was probably just a nasty stomach virus – the PA I saw in the ER yesterday couldn’t explain why my lower back would hurt like this, but I’ll give her a pass because she was cute – but I can, in fact, confirm that I’d rather watch pitchers take fielding practice than spend three hours in an ER. And I hate watching PFPs.
This list of Blackberry shortcuts was gold for me. For some reason, my blackberry jumps to the bottom of the list of messages from time to time and I didn’t know how to get it to the top (newest messages) of the list.
Klaw links: Audio clips of me with Ryen Russillo debating the top ten starters in the game, on AllNight, and on Chicago baseball tonight on ESPN 1000. My blog entry on Zack Wheeler is up, with video up later today. UPDATE: One more, from Tuesday, on the radio version of Baseball Tonight.
What I love is how brian is paranoid about being “attacked” yet he seems to be the only one doing any attacking.
He is obviously right on all issues because he has read Kant and you haven’t.
matt thanks for your anonymous comments but that might not be fair. bsk claimed albeit in another thread to have some knowledge of philosophy and religion. and kant is only the most important philosopher who ever lived who wrote only the most important ethical treatise ever written. you’ll forgive my bombastic response when kant was not heard of and dismissed as a relative philosopher! I’m not sure you can have a meaningful debate about psychology if half way through someone says, ‘wait who is freud and what is a super ego?’ kant is like freud here. he is that important. it is especially important here because he difinitivly dismissed apriori ethics 350 years ago. perhaps kant stands tall over this conversation and my bringing up only the most important philosopher ever has you know…merrit. I’m not suggesting the guy read something even mildly esoteric- only the most important philosopher ever!
brian, I spoke to specific people who have influenced my line of thought.
To your specific point, you can’t compare philosophy to psychology. One is much more of a hard science, albeit not entirely one. You act as if I can’t come to conclusions about the world around me without having read certain writers. Or as if their views are inherently superior to my own because of their name and legacy. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but I have come to a certain understanding of the world that I am *certainly* open to having challenged, but not by the approach that Matt outlined.
You continue to imply that there is no objective standard that can be agreed on. How can we have any laws or rules if people can just say, “Ya know what, it feels right to me?” Do we agree that cold-blooded murder is wrong? Do we agree that rape is wrong? According to you, we cannot agree on that.
I’m not saying every issue is clear-cut. I have made that distinction repeatedly. Many, many issues are matters of opinion. But some, SOME, I think can be judged against an objective standard. Not that I alone determine, but that a thinking society can come to a consensus on. If you really think this is impossible, than what are we doing with laws or a constitution?
Some things are objective. There are certain facts. 2 + 2 = 4. I don’t care what others “think” are right. It is 4. Done. Racism = bad. I am confident to say that is objectively right. If you can provide me evidence to the contrary, I am willing to reconsider, but everything I have come to understand about racism, which CAN be quantified and studied and verified, has indicated this.
“Not sure that you’ll ever care, but the best and easiest introductory book to philsophy I’ve come accross is The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant. He is VERY readable and concise. He also wrote a monster 12 volume history of the world that’s apparently very good too. Maybe starting out reading Kant would be a bit much as you’ve got to wade through jargon and old language. Try the synopsis first.”
Sounds pretty much like what I was alluding to.
OK, I’m locking this thread. Any discussion of the actual topic of racism/racist speech seems to have halted in favor of bickering.