Monday, March 28, 2011

Diet Soap Interview & Apologies

I'm once again putting off Part II. I've written about half of it, but (i) I have tests to write and classes to prep, and (ii) I just finished writing what, on copying and pasting all of my comments into a Word file and running a word count, turned out to be a bit over 2500 words in response to Colin, Brandon and ParisW's thoughts and objections to Part I. If you're desperate for more material on Liars and meaninglessness, I'll direct you to that discussion-in-progress. Meanwhile, I'll mention that this last weekend I was interviewed for a second appearance on the philosophy-themed Diet Soap podcast. Sounds like I might Episode 100. We didn't really skip to this script (plenty of questions not on the list, not all of the list questions asked), and in any case the interview lasted long enough that only a fraction of it should survive the cutting process and make it into the podcast, but to give at least an approximate flavor of the interview, here are the questions that host Doug Lain sent me in advance...

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You have a doctorate in philosophy and you specialize in philosophical systems of logic. As an American philosopher and a logician it strikes me that you'd fall in with Analytic philosophers. Is this correct?

How do you consider the division or distinction between continental and analytic philosophy?

How important is Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein to you and your philosophical work.

Do you hold to a deflationary account of truth claims?

It seems to me that Analytic philosophy might share something in common with instrumental reason. That is, that the deflationary accounts of truth claims have the impact of limiting our ability to challenge the logic of our historical moment or culture, whereas Continental philosophers like Hegel and Neitzche were primarily interested in thinking about how philosophy was tied to culture and history.

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