Mar
9
Publish or Perish
March 9, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I just got an email notification from Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews of a book by Jennifer Wright Knust called Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity (Columbia University Press, 2006). The review includes this brief description of the book:
Abandoned to Lust, a revision of Knust’s Columbia University dissertation, examines the ideological and theological commitments [...]
Mar
8
Argumentum ad scientiam
March 8, 2006 | Leave a Comment
There is an informal fallacy that is sometimes referred to by the Latin name Argumentum ad auctoritatem, which means, more or less, “appeal to authority”. But an appeal to authority is not always fallacious. If you are having a dispute over what the weather tomorrow is going to be like, it is not fallacious at [...]
Mar
6
A Tale of Two Augustines
March 6, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Anyone who professes to have even the least interest in the life and work of Saint Augustine of Hippo will have read Peter Brown’s magisterial Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967, new edition 2000). It has been, and remains, the principal authority in English on the subject, and in [...]
Mar
5
History as Philosophy
March 5, 2006 | Leave a Comment
In light of my post yesterday, I thought the following blurb from Princeton University Press would be of interest:
The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy
Before his death in 2003, Bernard Williams planned to publish a collection of historical essays, focusing primarily on the ancient world. This posthumous volume brings together a [...]
Mar
4
The Examined Life
March 4, 2006 | Leave a Comment
The Winter Quarter here at Ohio University is drawing to a close: the last week of classes is coming up, then there is a week of final exams and then a week for Spring Break. I have been remarkably fortunate this term: I taught a seminar on Plato’s Theaetetus that has been, in the twenty [...]
Mar
4
Paul Halsall
March 4, 2006 | Leave a Comment
For those who know and like Paul Halsall–among whom I count myself–it will come as a shock to learn that he was arrested last year on charges of selling cocaine to an undercover police officer. Reports of the incident make it sound as though he was set up. I have no way of knowing for [...]
Mar
4
It’s not an Exclusive Disjunction
March 4, 2006 | Leave a Comment
About nine or ten years ago my good friend Paul Halsall (until recently an assistant professor of history at the University of North Florida) said that in his opinion all Republicans are either stupid or evil. At first I thought he was just kidding. I’m not a member of the party, mind you, but he [...]
Mar
4
Wrongful Life
March 4, 2006 | Leave a Comment
If you thought that last story was something, don’t miss this part of the AP story:
Ohio and several other states have previously rejected a different type of claim, called “wrongful life,” in which the disabled child is the plaintiff.
Is it just me, or couldn’t the plaintiff in this case take care of the, um, “decision” [...]
Mar
4
Wrongful Birth
March 4, 2006 | Leave a Comment
In a 4-3 decision the Ohio state supreme court has ruled that doctors may be sued for “wrongful birth” if they fail to detect certain birth defects by means of genetic screening. The decision limited the liability to costs associated with pregnancy and birth–so-called “pain and suffering” damages and the costs associated with raising the [...]
Mar
3
Talk About Your Neo-pagan Goddess Worship…
March 3, 2006 | Leave a Comment
A recent announcement from Princeton University Press heralds the publication of a book called Women at the Beginning: Origin Myths from the Amazons to the Virgin Mary. I’ve often thought that if I weren’t a Roman Catholic I would have no religion at all: the claims of all other religions strike me as patently silly. [...]
