Blog
April 3, 2012
Pirahã and Progress – Nic McGinnis
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published an account of a divisive controversy in linguistics concerning the features of an obscure Amazonian language, Pirahã. Allegedly absent in Pirahã is ‘recursion’—the embedding of sentences within sentences—a feature that is (supposedly) central … Continue reading
Back
March 13, 2012
"Science controversies past and present," in Physics Today
Steve Sherwood, of the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, provides a thoughtful, if schematic, discussion of historical scientific controversy, linking past polemics to present strife on climate change. Both Copernican heliocentrism … Continue reading
Back
January 31, 2012
On Being Engaged – Nicholas McGinnis
‘Nothing is required for this Enlightenment,’ Kant wrote in 1784, ‘except freedom … the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters.’ A philosophy blog could do worse than adopt such a motto: for Kant, the ‘Enlightenment’ was, after all, … Continue reading
Back
