Professor of Philosophy, University of Maryland Author of The Way of Bach, Governing Least
Joined June 2021
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A surprising feature of Homer is how much the Trojans are Hellenized. Some cultures seem to narrate their conflicts by projecting themselves onto their enemies, others see them as aliens to be exterminated.
Imagine a future story of the Vietnam War where the Vietcong are protestants named Bob Johnson who speak English. That's Troy, with some telltale exceptions.
I recommend Troy and Homer by Joachim Latacz if you’re interested in questions of historicity and technical details. Surprised to learn how much evidence there is of Mycenaean connections to other Bronze Age powers, and of specific lines tracing back many centuries.
Teaching Kant, I'm surprised to see how much Adam Smith is visible. Shopkeepers and impartial spectators abound in the Groundwork. And much of the Idea for a Universal History follows Smithian reasoning about markets to impose an arrow on history.
Reading Thucydides in my grad seminar--glad to see Davos world leaders are too! I think they should be worried about casting others as the Athenians and themselves as Melians.
...and that the powerful exact what they can, while the weak yield what they must.” Loeb ed., trans. CF Smith
This is charitably read not as denying justice is real, but as insisting the strong will enforce justice as they see it, which seems ok.
Philosophers should read the @tobyordoxford paper on the long term of the universe, especially the implications of cosmic expansion.
arxiv.org/abs/2104.01191
If I got this right, there will come a time when we are gravitationally bound to our Local Group, but the rest of the universe is no longer observable because of expansion. This means the universe will seem static and small, and observers will be deluded.
Raymond Geuss: "Ethics is usually dead politics: the hand of a victor in some past conflict reaching out to try to extend its grip to the present and the future."
Moving to see the Mayflower colonists try Plato's communism and discover they needed private property! Reminiscent of @ATabarrok on China's similar discovery.
marginalrevolution.com/margi…
Romantic but wrong. If Jeff McMahan’s attacks on traditional Just War Theory succeed, they’ll change everyone’s life, but the initial stages will have been obscure, bureaucratic articles that would bore non-experts.
marginalrevolution.com/margi…
Recommend Synetic Theater's Immigrant to anyone in DC. Narrative dance with music but no dialogue. I was surprised how effective this is--puzzled why they aren't at the the Kennedy Center @kencen.
edcjcc.org/theater-j/show/sy…