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2004-10-01 14:55

Monday Review of Stuff, Bonus Friday Edition

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.)

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2004-10-01 12:37

Canonise me harder!

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]

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2004-10-01 foo! (utc+1)

"Contrary" Mary Midgley

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.

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2004-09-30 Prinsesspaus (utc+1)

Retail therapy, prinsess style

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.

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2004-09-30 samwidge (utc+1)

Why I am so unrealistique

(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.

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2004-09-30 prinsesspaus (utc+1)

Knudella speaks!

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!

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2004-09-30 10:25

A quote

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.

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2004-09-29 bah! (utc+1)

In-der-Weg-sein und mein reichhaltige freie Zeit

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.

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2004-09-29 flllp (utc+1)

The bit I understood:

(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.

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2004-09-29 samwidge. and crisps (utc+1)

Stop stopping that at once at once

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.

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2004-09-29 morning (utc+1)

Sm�rg�spost, Me Me Me! edition

�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.

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2004-09-28 god kv�ll (utc+1)

University Event Double Feature!

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.)

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2004-09-28 prinsesspaus (utc+1)

Prinsesspaus

�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'?

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2004-09-28 samwidge (utc+1)

Monday Preview of Stuff

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.

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2004-09-28 morning (utc+1)

Monday Review of Stuff

�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.)

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2004-09-27 15:57

O tempora! Oh dear!

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]

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2004-09-27 samwidge (utc+1)

Of Hostages and Heroisme, slightly Hispanic

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.

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2004-09-27 10:52

In praise of Lidl

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.

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