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2004-10-01 14:55
Am�lie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements (
4.40 EUR in la France or 4.85 UKP at Grant and Cutler, sigh).
Am�lie, the Belgian narratrice,'s dream of working in Japan turns sour
as she starts at the bottom and works her way steadily down.
That's pretty much it for plot; the attraction of this book is in the
telling - the prose is a delight, and the unblinking clarity with
which the unfolding of successive humiliations is told is Kafkaesque
in its acceptance of the absurd, and often (as with Kafka) therefore
very funny. There's a top-quality ten-page rant on the plight of
Japanese wimmins in general about half-way through, also.
I very rarely read novels, and very rarely indeed novels by wimmins,
but I certainly expect to read more of Nothomb's.
(There's also an Engleeshing
now, so there's no excuse for not reading it, especially since it is so very short.)
[Permalink]
2004-10-01 12:37
A Dansk canon,
Sir or Madam?
Karen Blixen og 14 andre danske forfattere er med p� det s�kaldte
Kanon-udvalgs liste over forfatterskaber, som danske skoleelever skal
l�se.
Karen Blixen and 14 other Danish authors are included on the so-called
Canon-selection list of writings that Danish schoolchildrens will read.
I approve of this, although I am neither Danish nor a schoolchildren,
precisely because it gives a tick-list for anyone, such as me, who
might have occasion to wish to catch up with the glorious Danish
history and cultuals.
[via]
[Permalink]
2004-10-01 foo! (utc+1)
Her celebrated or reviled, selon le cas, paper Gene
Juggling is online. The opening, however, is perhaps the most
disappointing since I didn't make it to the second leaf node of the
Tractatus:
Genes cannot be selfish or unselfish, any more than atoms can be
jealous, elephants abstract or biscuits teleological.
Bad Midgley! No teleological biscuit! But then she redeems herself in
a Grauniad
interview:
It is entirely characteristic that her latest book,
Science And Poetry takes its epigraph from Richard Dawkins, "Science
is the only way we have of understanding the real world", and proceeds
to dance all over this apparently reasonable statement. It's not that
she considers science a bad way of knowing the real world. But it is
only one among many, and one which must be kept in firmly its place.
Richard "He's all Dawk" Dawkins, isn't it? Good old-fashioned
unreconstructed realistes are few and far between these days, so kudos
to Midgley for not only finding one all of her own, but of realising
the importance of making a whole career out of hitting him on
the head.
[Permalink]
2004-09-30 Prinsesspaus (utc+1)
Your modern independent prinsess needs a palace of her
own, after all:
Nyseparerte prinsesse Alexandra (40) har kj�pt eget hus - to uker
etter bruddet med prins Joachim (35). [...]
Prisen skal ha v�rt 7,2 millioner danske kroner. If�lge
bladrapportene skal Alexandra ha skrevet under papirene allerede i
juni.
Newly separated prinsess Alexandra (40) has bought her own house - two
weeks after her split with prins Joachim (35). [...]
The price was 7.2 million DEK [664,658.47 GBP]. According to bladet
reports Alexandra already had the deal lined up in June.
The depressing thing is that 700,000 GBP wouldn't buy you a remotely
prinsess-worthy house in London.
[Permalink]
2004-09-30 samwidge (utc+1)
(Somewhat inspired, or at least provoked, by Professor Peter Lipton's
Medawar Lecture "The Truth About Science".)
I will follow Lipton in using the term realisme for the belief
that the goal of science is to give a true picture of a world
independent of science. Lipton acknowledged during his lecture that
it is a position he would like to hold; I'll acknowledge right up
front that it is a view I intensely dislike.
I dislike it so much, in fact, that I am going to procede by
constructing a caricature of an extreme version of this point of view
and then mocking it. I will call militant realisme the view
that not only does science aspire to a true picture of an independent
universe, but that only science done in this spirit is really science
at all.
Now, scientifique models of the universe are occasionally replaced by
new ones - a paradigmique example is the replacement of Newtonian
mechanics by Einstein's theory of relativity. For this to be other
than an embarrassment for realistes, let alone militant realistes,
they will need to be able to claim that the latter is more
true or closer to the truth or a better
approximation to the truth or something of that sort. (The
question I asked, and I apologise for the agonising suspence in which
you may have been left on this subject, was what exactly
"approximate truth" was. Professor Lipton conceded that none of the
proposals offered to date were entirely satisfactory.)
Of course, Newtonian physics is still widely used: as a description of
the universe, in the many circumstances where its results are a good
approximation to those of relativity, and a whole lot easier to get and
for pedagogical purposes - students are taught Newtonian mechanics
first, and may often also be taught it up to postgraduate level using
celebrated texts such as those of Goldstein and Arnol'd which develop
the theory using tools that have applicability to more modern physical
theories.
But what it isn't, for a militant realiste, is science (anymore) -
whatever heuristique or pedagogical advantages it has, the picture
that Newtonian mechanics gives of space and time is known to be
untrue, and that's that. (Although we may hope it retains a place of
honour in the history of science.)
Even more strikingly, I claim that a militant realist would also be
obliged to hold the view that chemistry isn't really science, either.
The Nobel prize-winning (and generally legendary) physicist Richard
Feynman used
to quip that "All theoretical chemistry is really physics; and all
theoretical chemists know it."
He had a point; the theoretical
chemistry of his day was firmly based on the theories of quantum
mechanics that physicists had developed in the early 19__s. Chemical
"reactions" from then on could be understood as a shorthand for
quantum mechanical processes, and in fact the same goes for the whole
subject - any concepts that chemists use that are not found in physics
have to be understood as heuristics convenient for exposition or
calculation, but with no status of their own as part of a "true"
picture of reality. There may be cases in which the calculations are
difficult or intractible based on quantum theory, and in some cases
experiments may even be necessary, but that's a detail of no
epistemological consequence.
My Varied Reader might be tempted to retort that no one could actually
find such a view appealing or reasonable, but there was a time when I
wanted to be a theoretical physiciste when I grew up, and the militant
realiste view is not all that far from the way I saw things at that
said time. The philosophically sophisticated reader, or those who
have been paying attention, will also notice that I have built-in a
kind of positivisme to the militant
realiste's view of chemistry, and I probably ought to defend this.
Recall that positivism is the view that sciences for a tower in which
each storey is built on the foundations of the one below - biology on
top of chemistry on top of physics (after which it's physics all the
way down, of course). If, like the militant realiste, you are
committed to a view of science as a true picture of the universe, and
discarding the less true ones when their failings become apparent, it
seems to me that it is unavoidable that the most fundamental theory is
the true one, and anything that can be (in principle) derived from or
explained in terms of it is merely convenient and has no independent
claim to truth.
Newtonian physics was replaced, as an account of the
universe, by relativity and chemistry was superceded by quantum
mechanics: the only significant difference between the situations, as
Feyman's remark suggests, is that chemistry as a discpline has had
enough of its own history and, crucially, institutional independence
from physics to resist assimilation.
(I've added a stiff dose of one-eyed reductionisme to the militant
realistes many faults, of course, but if you're going to be all "Oh
there are many different truths and trees and flowers and beautiful
chemicals have their own kind of truth" you will start sounding like a
hippy, and how militant is that?)
By now, I hope that I've made the militant realiste position
sufficiently unattractive that anyone other than theoretical
physicistes and their many groupies is going to be willing to
renegociate the epistemological claims implicite in science, but what
I would prefer in their stead is a question for another day and
another post.
[Permalink]
2004-09-30 prinsesspaus (utc+1)
Danish!
Marys charmerende danske bliver stadig bedre,
afsl�rede hun i g�r ved �bningen af en fotoudstilling.
[Kronprinsess]mary's charming Danish gets steadily better, she
demonstrated yesterday while opening a fotoexhibition.
She was wearing, you will be relieved to hear, a hat to help her
through the ordeal:
Der er ingen tvivl om, at ordene i g�r var lige s� n�je sammensat
som hendes gr� dragt med de lilla sko, den lilla hat og den lilla
skjortebluse.
There's no doubt that the words yesterday were as carefully chosen as her
grey dragt with the lilac shoes, the lilac hat and the lilac
shirtyblouse.
Oh dear. Better luck next time, Your Prinsessship!
[Permalink]
2004-09-30 10:25
- Edmund:
- You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in
Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on
one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea
was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's
deterrent. That way there could never be a war.
- Baldrick:
- But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?
- Edmund:
- Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in
the plan.
- George:
- What was that, sir?
- Edmund:
- It was bollocks.
[Permalink]
2004-09-29 bah! (utc+1)
The characteristique property of the student is one which we call
Being-in-the-way (In-der-Weg-sein).
"Get out", our impatient spirits quixotically yearn to yell at them,
"of the bloody way!" But it is the task of the philosopher also to
consider the way itself, rather than to take it for granted precisely
because it is always already to hand (or rather foot).
For us, it is the always-already-under-foot-path on which we set out,
but paradoxically for the student's Being-in-the-way it is not
the way - they are not themselves on the way anyway, but have instead
arrived at their destination. The Being of Being-in-the-way, then, is
in fact properly always Being-in-Somebody-else's-way.
[Permalink]
2004-09-29 flllp (utc+1)
(37/21)� + (17/21)� = 6
It was another of those talks where the "do come, she's a great speaker
you'll love it"* emails go round, which I have decoded to mean "we're
going to offer her a job, so it'd be nice to have a good turnout". I
skipped the last one and felt guilty, so I went to this one and I'll
tell you this: I won't feel guilty for skipping the next one.
* For "he" values of "she", in practice.
[Permalink]
2004-09-29 samwidge. and crisps (utc+1)
D'you hear?
L'industrie alimentaire britannique s'est engag�e �
retirer des rayons des supermarch�s ses barres chocolat�es et autres
paquets de chips grand format d'ici 2005, afin de lutter contre
l'�pid�mie d'ob�sit� qui touche la Grande-Bretagne.
The alimentation industry of Britain has engaged to retire from the
shelves of supermarkets its chocolate bats and other large packets of
crisps between now and 2005, to the end of fighting against the
epidemic of obesity which is affecting the Great Britain.
Sigh. Why can't the supermarkts just stop selling these such things
to fat persons? They discriminate in the sale of tobacco and
alcohol, after all. And we could have special ID cards for persons
who are medically certified to be merely "big boned", ho ho.
[Permalink]
2004-09-29 morning (utc+1)
�1. When I get down to the bottom I go back to the top
It was only a brisk cheezenwein as it turned out, but two (2) glasses
of wine cancelled out the day's statutory two (2) cups of coffee, and
I figured another coffee would be a wise precaution if I was going to
do philosophie � la Anglais sotte. (Yet another advantage of
Proper Filosofi is you don't have to be sober - or even approximately
sane - to participate.) Whereupon I was buzzing jus' like a buzzin'
fly, so I got a bottle of wine on the way home to ease my path to the
realm of Morpheus.
�2. The way things are, and the frequency with which they are so
So I've moved flat, and got sufficiently used to being there that I no
longer pay conscious attention to the necessity of not just walking
STRAIGHT BLOODY PAST IT on the way to the old flat. Whereupon,
needless to say, this is exactly what I did.
It's usually on about the third day in a country where they drive on
the wrong side that I start to relax because I've got used to it,
whereupon it promptly turns out that I haven't. With hilarious
consequences!
�3. Me Me Me!
I thought everyone was going to want to ask questions at the lecture,
so I had my hand up fairly promptly. Where it was, of course, alone.
[Permalink]
2004-09-28 god kv�ll (utc+1)
Heh. It's the department's New Year Party in a minute, and at 1800
(UTC+1) is it the Medawar
Lecture.
Evidence for a scientific theory is never
conclusive. This raises three sorts of question. First, what then is
the relationship between theory and data? Second, is science in the
truth business, or should we understand its aims in some other way?
Third, is the case for saying that science is revealing the truth
about a largely unobservable reality made out by the striking
predictive successes of some of our best theories? Or is it undermined
by a long history of theories that succeeded for a time but which are
now known to be fundamentally mistaken?
As a service to our Varied Reader, and because I may be slightly too
tipsy to care what Professor Peter Lipton opines, I will give the
answers in advance: Complicated; Some other way, unless you've built
that into what you mean by "truth" (which I would recommend); No and
yes, in that order.
Really, does anyone outside Butterflies and Wheels
think that science is an epistemologically unproblematic source of
Shining Timeless Truths? I've got nothing against truths, as such,
but their relationship with methodological considerations is not
trivial.
(I'm more Kuhnian than Popperian on Phil O' Sci, for those keeping
score, and more Neitzschean than either.)
[Permalink]
2004-09-28 prinsesspaus (utc+1)
�1. Educated is the new ignorant!
They're all at
it:
Kronprinsesse Victoria skal studere statsvitenskap ved
F�rsvarsh�gskolan, prins Carl Philip starter p� en to�rig utdannelse
innen grafisk design, mens prinsesse Madeleine skal studere etnologi
ved universitetet i Stockholm.
Kronprinsess Victoria is going to study Political Science at the
Defence University, while prinsess Madeleine is going to study
anthropologi at the University of Stockholm.
Madde doing anthropologi? Hidden depths, it is that that girl has,
and hidden far from ineptly.
�2. Tsk!
Woche
der Frau do you think you're playing at, tyska trashbladets?
Tyske ukebladlesere som tror at kronprinsesse Victoria planlegger
�eventyrbryllup�, f�r vite at dette ikke er tilfelle n�r ukebladet
denne uke trykker det svenske kongehusets dementi p� forsiden.
German trashbladet readers who believed that kronprinsess Victoria was
planning a "fairytalewedding" soon found out that wasn't the case when
the trashbladet printed the Swedish royal family's denial on the front
page of the next week's issue.
�3. And finally,
Prinsess Alexandra, in, as you have surely come to expect, a
hat. She's a trooper that prinsess A, va'?
[Permalink]
2004-09-28 samwidge (utc+1)
Now am I reading Essential Super-Villain Team-Ups vol. I and
Deleuze and Guattari's Qu'est-ce que la philosophie ?
Which are by no means the same thing, regardless of what you may have
heard.
[Permalink]
2004-09-28 morning (utc+1)
�1. Id�ernas historier, Sten H�gn�s
(As cited last week.)
Apparently the history of ideas is a major academic discipline in the
'Wegia, and a very excellent discipline it is, too. This excellent
introduction, ideal for sparking the curiosity of a schoolchildren or
satisfying that of a grown-up, could really do with being translated
into the silly Engleesh immediately, if not sooner.
And I read it without using a dictionary, hoorah!
�2. Ein Mann zu viel, Felix und Theo
This is at the easy-peasy lemon-squeezy end of Langenscheidt's
Leichte Lekt�ren series. So much so that I read it in two (2)
sittings, again without needing to use (or at least without using) a
dictionary. (It is also only 20-mumble pages long, which helped.)
[Permalink]
2004-09-27 15:57
Thomas Bernhard, for it is he, on the distant era in which The
[London] Times could be mistaken for a newsbladet:
I attach the utmost importance to reading books and newspapers every
morning, and in the course of my intellectual life I have specialized
in reading English and French newspapers, having found the German
press unbearable every since I first began to read. What is the
Frankfurter Allegemeine, for instance, compared with The Times, I have
often asked myself, what is the Suddeutsche [sic, but the Matriarch of Tiltonia opines that this should be Suedeutsche, and who are we to disagree?] Zeitung beside Le Monde?
The answer is that the Germans are just not English and certainly not
French. From my early youth I have regarded the ability to read
English and French books and newspapers as the greatest advantage I
possess. What would my world be like, I often wonder, if I had to rely
on the German papers, which are for the most part little more than
garbage sheets -- to say nothing of the Austrian newspapers, which are
not newspapers at all but mass-circulation issues of unusable toilet
paper?
Is that a mutatis in your mutandis, Contemporaneity, or
did News International just disembowel your journal of reference?
[via]
[Permalink]
2004-09-27 samwidge (utc+1)
Alonso de Guzm�n, a thirteenth-century Spanish hero, allowed the Moors
to kill his own son beneath the walls of Tarifa rather than surrender
the town to them - he threw down his own dagger for the execution,
crying, "Kill the boy! I'd rather lose six [6] sons than surrender!"
Seven hundred years later Colonel Ituarte Moscard�, defending the
Alcazar at Toledo for General Franco, allowed the enemy to kill his
son too, rather than give up the fortress - "Commend your soul to
God", he told the boy over the telephone, "shout Viva Espag�a,
and die like a hero!" Spain loves such postures, at once tragic and
defiant, just as she has a persistent regard for flags, tall horses,
and splendid isolation.
Spain, Jan Morris
Of course, I wouldn't sacrifice a cup of coffee to further the
current inane Neo-Imperialiste Boondoggle, either. It is just that it
was this of which I was reminded.
[Permalink]
2004-09-27 10:52
Cut-price supermarket Lidl's entry into the Norwegish
market is one of the big stories of the year over there, for sure,
but in the UK they've been around for a while. I don't frequent
them, not because I have a problem with the cheap but because they are
not to hand and I have no car.
I was visiting the ancestral seat at the weekend, however, and the
Dowager Countess was laying in provisions for a party, so we went to
Lidl for the yummy �l in particular, and I was much taken with the
experience. The brands are not well known, and the labelling is in
many cases in Forren, but if there's one thing I learned in Germany
it's that one beer gebraut nach dem Reinheitsgebot ("brewed in
accordance with the very fussy German beerpuritylaw") is pretty
much like another. And they have all the sossidges and herrings one
could wish for, too.
[Permalink]
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