The Irrational Economist

The Irrational Economist ? Article by Peter Monaghan in the Chronicle of Higher Education [via Jorn]. Making economics look like a mathematical science is a con trick. All part of the “rational conspiracy”. [Quote] The orthodoxy also distorts economic reality, say its critics. “Superficially, it seems like a coherent model of the world,” says Mr. Keen, the author of Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences. But don’t be fooled, he says, by the mainstream’s fancy mathematics and claims that it is a predictive science, not just a descriptive social science. [Unquote], and more from Deirdre McCloskey blogged earlier. Several good source references in this article.

Barrett, Velasquez, Gaarder & Pirsig

Barrett got me thinking. Spotted a reference to him in Manuel Velasquez, then followed the latter into various university philosophy course web-sites and stumbled across this California Baptist Univ course. The first serious academic looking philosophy link to Pirsig and ZAMM that I’ve come across. I suppose it had to be in California.

Nothing New Under the Sun

“The quantity of journalism the modern age has turned out in the process of its own self-analysis, already overflows our archives and, were it not that most of it were doomed to perish, would be a dull burden to hand down to our descendants. Communication makes possible the [] instantaneous conveying of news from one point on the globe to another. We are still pretty much in ignorance [of true knowledge], and most of the comtemporary world is caught up in an unconscious act and gigantic conspiracy to run away from these facts. Man is willing to learn about himself only after some disaster. What he learns has always been there [and] it is no less true for having come out of a period of chaos and disaster.”

Modern world ? Contemporary world ? Blogging post 9/11 ?

Well no, 1958 actually, written by US philosopher William Barrett in “The Irrational Man – A Study in Existentialist Philosophy” reflecting on the state of philosophy and knowledge post two world wars, in the shadow of the atomic age. (Very busy right now, but had to blog that reference – No relation to Wild Willie I presume ?).

Absolute Powerpoint

Absolute Powerpoint. Essential reading for Powerpoint jockey’s everywhere – an interesting and amusing article on the origins and ubiquity of Powerpoint [via Jorn]. Spooky – Even manages to quote Steven Pinker on Powerpoint and the virtues of graphical communication in parallel with verbal (!)

The Underground Railway from Pakistan to Palestine ?

The Underground Railway from Pakistan to Palestine ? Where would you get off ? The American Conservative [via Jorn] interviews Norman Mailer as a “Left-Conservative”. [Quote] The notion that man is a rational creature who arrives at reasonable solutions to knotty problems is much in doubt as far as I?m concerned. [Unquote]