Monthly Archives: May 2011

Reintroducing academic knowledge into the world

Keith Brown and I attended UNT’s second annual Symposium on Open Access on Friday. The academic movement toward open access is based on valuing academic information and scholarly output as a public good, and therefore should exist in the public … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Future of the University, Libraries, Open Access, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | 2 Comments

Economics of food: Global vs. local?

My last post ended with a description of the positive feedback loop involved in globalizing commodities – in this case food – as well as a brief description of some of the disastrous consequences. Here I want to detail a … Continue reading

Posted in Environmental policy, Public Philosophizing, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Leave a comment

Getting One Over On Ourselves

“Heaven preserve you from questions of origin.” – Valéry (Notebooks, C. 21, p.275, 1938; as quoted by Derrida in Margins of Philosophy) “The essence of scientific wisdom… lies in being tentative about what one takes to be… necessary.” -Wilfred Sellars, “Is … Continue reading

Posted in New Lexicon, Public Philosophizing, TechnoScience & Technoscientism, Transdisciplinarity | 4 Comments

The demise of expertise in the age of Google

Whether the internet is responsible for the erosion of trust in expertise is an interesting question. I believe, however, that a recent article by Josh Fischman in the Chronicle of Higher Education raises a related, but different claim: “The notion … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, CSID Publications, Future of the University, Metrics, Peer Review, Transdisciplinarity | 1 Comment

Would you like some water with your methane?

A new study out of Duke claims that the methane content of groundwater within 3000 feet of shale gas wells in Appalachia is 17 times higher than wells farther away.  At the very least, methane contamination makes water dangerously flammable, … Continue reading

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How to Build Faulty Towers

Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education | The Nation. A really nice well rounded and informative piece. Especially insightful for those who do not comprehend two important facts about the relationship between entrepreneurship and success: To be adventurous requires … Continue reading

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Economics of Food: Symptoms of Schizophrenia

In a previous post, I introduced this extended discussion on the economics of food. More specifically, my purpose is to begin to unpack what we mean by ‘national security’ – a sign, in the Nietzschean sense – in a neoliberal … Continue reading

Posted in Environmental policy, Public Philosophizing, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Leave a comment

The Suspect Climate Credentials of Natural Gas

Natural gas has been touted as the ‘clean’ fossil fuel in large part because it emits less carbon dioxide than oil or coal when burned.  A new study out of Cornell suggests precisely the opposite – natural gas could actually … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Environmental policy, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | 1 Comment

The grammar of the digital humanities

I confess: I like grammar. I like grammar not because I like following rules (though I often get mistaken as a rule-follower by inattentive observers), but rather because I like searching for rules — and that’s really what grammar is … Continue reading

Posted in Future of the University, Interdisciplinarity, Metrics, New Lexicon, Public Philosophizing, Transdisciplinarity | Leave a comment

A New Lexicon Redux

What the word fails to say, circumstance mutely adds… The real meaning of a word is not in the dictionary; it is in the instant.  Jose Ortega y Gasset, Concord & Liberty, p. 13 I got a lot of positive feedback … Continue reading

Posted in New Lexicon, Public Philosophizing | 2 Comments

Grace Notes

I learned about grace notes when my daughters were studying music. Here’s one account: A grace note should perhaps be thought of as an extra bit of flourish by the composer and player. Many call a grace note an “ornament” … Continue reading

Posted in Public Philosophizing | 5 Comments

Economics of food: Is national security at stake?

Against the predominant current of 19th century philosophy, Nietzsche contends in the Genealogy of Morality that history, while organic in nature, need not be assumed to be teleological in order to be intelligible. As an organic ‘entity’, i.e. human civilization, … Continue reading

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Community Connectivities / Temporal Belongings

An interdisciplinary residential workshop is being held at the University of Manchester. The meeting will explore the interconnections between time and community (broadly conceived). This is a part of the new UK cross-council research theme of Connected Communities and is … Continue reading

Posted in Conferences Upcoming, Interdisciplinarity, Public Philosophizing, Transdisciplinarity | Leave a comment

Industrial Medical Technoscience

Deborah Rhodes: A tool that finds 3x more breast tumors, and why it’s not available to you | Video on TED.com. Very interesting lecture that opens up some intriguing questions concerning how the technoscience progress machine, or Westernizing Transnational economics, … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Economics & STEM Research, NIH, Public Philosophizing, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Leave a comment

Metaphilosophy: Inside Out — Musings on Kitcher

This is the first of what may turn into a series of reflections on Philip Kitcher’s recent article (blogged about by Keith Brown, yesterday). First, let me say that it is often very much easier to criticize someone’s position than … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Future of the University, Public Philosophizing, Transdisciplinarity | 1 Comment

Philosophy: Inside Out

PHILOSOPHY INSIDE OUT – KITCHER – 2011 – Metaphilosophy – Wiley Online Library. Among the articles in the recent Metaphilosophy special issue–the Future of Philosophy: Metaphilosophical Directions for the 21st Century–is this one by Philip Kitcher. I recommend the read. ABSTRACT: Philosophy … Continue reading

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The Multiverse vs. Interdisciplinarity

Cross-check: Is speculation in multiverses as immoral as speculation in subprime mortgages?. Interesting on a number of levels. The blogger is right to say that notions like string theory are not “science” in the sense of predicting things and putting … Continue reading

Posted in TechnoScience & Technoscientism | 3 Comments