Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Introduction

Hi there have just been looking at your blog, love...

2008-10-09T13:48:00.000-04:00

Hi there have just been looking at your blog, love it! Have just started up my own philosophy blog check it out! http://philosophyblogger.blogspot.com/

I just stumbled on this blog's post, "In Defence o...

2008-05-06T10:06:00.000-04:00

I just stumbled on this blog's post, "In Defence of Impractical Philosophy." I like it. I hope to read more. Anyway, the blog seems nice.

I have philosophy forums. I would be pleased if you checked them out and gave me some feedback.

My name's Jason, and while I don't comment often o...

2008-02-08T16:11:00.000-05:00

My name's Jason, and while I don't comment often on Richard's blog I read it regularly. Much of the time his posts are a bit above my head, but they're always interesting.

Philosophy was one of my majors as an undergrad, but I went on to an MFA in Creative Writing first. I still consider grad work in philosophy from time to time.

I teach at a couple of community colleges, and last semester I was allowed to teach an Introduction to Logic course. I loved it.

My interest mainly lies in epistemology and ethics, and especially where the two meet.

Enough about me. Back to the reading of the Richard.

Hi Everybody, My name is Tanya Ohanian and I just ...

2008-01-22T16:56:00.000-05:00

Hi Everybody,

My name is Tanya Ohanian and I just discovered this blog and LOVE it! I'm 19 years old and live in Los Angeles. I am currently an international relations major...I don't know what I plan to do with it..utterly confused...too many choices...so if anybody knows the perfect career for me pleasee let me know.

Anyway, im digressing....I'm always in the pursuit of more and more knowledge....in my eyes theres nothing better.... not even sex or money!!! My favorite philosopher is Descartes...he's the one that got me into this BIG intellectual mess!! Idealist to the bone...socialist....hmmmm...thats all for now

Hi Everybody, My name is Tanya Ohanian and I just ...

2008-01-22T16:52:00.000-05:00

Hi Everybody,

My name is Tanya Ohanian and I just discovered this blog and LOVE it! I am an international relations major...I don't know what I plan to do with it..utterly confused...too many choices...so if anybody knows the perfect career for me pleasee let me know.

Anyway, im digressing....I'm always in the pursuit of more and more knowledge....in my eyes theres nothing better.... not even sex or money!!! My favorite philosopher is Descartes...he's the one that got me into this BIG intellectual mess!!

hey all,I'm Ben. Using gyroid as a tag. Born in En...

2007-08-07T16:02:00.000-04:00

hey all,
I'm Ben. Using gyroid as a tag. Born in England, grew up in NZ, grad school in states, currently living in Germany. Came across your blog a couple of years ago googling and occasionally look in on it.

No philosophy training (which I'm sure you've guessed from my comments!). Am trained in Chemical Engineering but have since moved more into biophysics. Currently doing a post-doc doing computer simulations of cell membranes. All rather irrelevant to stuff going on here. My philosophical leanings are generated from studying physics and reading too much science fiction. Some of my favourite metaphysical ponderings are those of Mark Tegmark (physicist) and Jürgen Schmidhuber (computer scientist).

Weird I thought I had already introduced myself he...

2007-07-27T12:14:00.000-04:00

Weird I thought I had already introduced myself here, but as far as I can tell, no I hadn't... Well there you go then.

As you can tell I try to epitomise the absentminded philosopher, having poured myself a drink into a plate, and on another occasion made sandwiches on top of a bowl. I blame deep thought, but it is probably a poor excuse.

I'm doing my PhD at the University of Auckland in New Zealand with Rosalind Hursthouse, whilst simultaneously lecturing on bioethics in the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. The commute is unbelievable. My main interests are in political philosophy, applied ethics and philosophy of religion with a little bit of everything else thrown in. You can read more about me here: David Hunter CV
if you particularly want. I started and contribute to two group blogs
Ethical Issues in Resource Allocation & Philosophy and Bioethics. I also contribute to two more group blogs: Problogsion & In Socrates’ Wake
So you could say I get around the blogosphere. I've very much enjoyed Richard's blog which I've been reading since I can't remember when.

Hey,My name is 'Jack'.I am from the States, and I ...

2007-04-02T21:14:00.000-04:00

Hey,

My name is 'Jack'.

I am from the States, and I am betting on going to graduate school somewhere within an hour's train ride of Penn Station in NYC.

I'm interested in all sorts of philosophical questions. I told a professor just the other day that I feel like a sucker for philosophy. I hear someone say anything remotely philosophical with even a tinge of excitement in their voice, and I'm hooked, thinking "I really should read up on that literature."

I'm new to this blogging ordeal and a bit skeptical. I worry that my name will be on thoughts I want to revoke later. I change my mind a lot, but, as people from the States so frequently (though confusingly) say, "here goes nothing."

Hello Philosophy, et cetera.

Trained by Berkeley's best Ango-American philosoph...

2007-03-08T15:37:00.000-05:00

Trained by Berkeley's best Ango-American philosophers (Feyerabend, Grice, Searle, Davidson, Williams, etc.), I find analytic philosophy precise, but irrelevant.

My principal philosophical influences are Aristotle, Epicurus, Hume, Smith, Popper, Hayek, Searle, and Solomon. Solomon is U. of Texas analytic application of existential thought rigrously applied. Cool! I resist all "Continental" ideologies, if I don't skewer them. The French "intellectuals" are an oxymoron.

I also address politics, economics, science, and issues of interest to gay men. I'm an unabashed Enlightenment Liberal, Darwinian, Pluralist, and Integralist. I often target the metaphysics of the behavioral poets for their nonsense. If readers have any interest in any of these issues, stop by.

Hi Michele. Let me assure you, I welcome your comm...

2007-02-19T18:06:00.000-05:00

Hi Michele. Let me assure you, I welcome your comments, and have never deleted any of them. (Sometimes Blogger stuffs up, but that's nothing to do with me.) If a comment still doesn't appear after you refresh the screen, try re-posting it a bit later. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Hi Richard. I leave often comments on your blog, e...

2007-02-19T11:59:00.000-05:00

Hi Richard. I leave often comments on your blog, especially about well-being. You tend to erase them very often, although they never contain any offensive tone or content. I imagine therefore that you find them so utterly stupid that they do not deserve to appear in your blog. Thank you. I hope to improve the level of my posts so that you will finally allow them to appear here.
By the way, I admire you.
Ciao.

Hi, I'm Seth Baum. Richard, we exchanged a few e...

2007-02-02T23:25:00.000-05:00

Hi,

I'm Seth Baum. Richard, we exchanged a few emails last September. I don't read this blog much, but I still wanted to introduce myself and to make a shameless plug.

I'm a utilitarian. I'm also not a philosopher. My background's in engineering, and I'm applying to PhD programs to probably study climate change from a utilitarian perspective. I'm ultimately interested in "Given the world we live in, what, from a utilitarian perspective, should we do?" and in turn trying to make that happen.

The shameless plug is for Felicifia, an online utilitarianism community I'm helping develop. I'm hoping it grows into an ecclectic community of utilitarians and those interested in utilitarianism. Philosophers are certainly welcome.

My name is Chloe. I'm a high school (luckily with ...

2007-01-26T13:27:00.000-05:00

My name is Chloe. I'm a high school (luckily with only 4 months left before college). My sheltered life has fueled a thirst for knowledge. I crave depth. Considering the reality of high school, I feed my passion from blogs like this. I am content in who I am and I love my friends, but I am ready to move on. I cannot wait to immerse myself in the depths of creativity and authenticity. I love this blog. Surrounded by a constant flow of superficiality, blogs like this keep me grounded. So thanks Richard! I hope you know you're very much appreciated!
-Curious Chloe

G'day Richard, I'm Steve McKinlay, I tripped over ...

2006-12-03T16:07:00.000-05:00

G'day Richard,

I'm Steve McKinlay, I tripped over your blog via Genuis. I have my own blog - ontic. I mostly publish on topics related to capitalism (and it's flaws) consumerism, energy, and modern punk rockers.

I completed a BA(hons) at Victoria Uni in Wellington in Philosophy, then did a Masters, supervised by Edwin Mares, currently I'm doing a PhD, co-supervised by Prof John Weckert and Steve Clarke through Charles Sturt (although they are based at ANU), I'm funded through the CAPPE. Oh, I also have a degree in Computing (that's my day job) I lecture in IT at Weltec, Wellington, NZ.

The PhD - Philosophy of Information, looking mostly at Floridi's conceptions of information as semantic content... most of my study in philosophy has been heavily analytic in nature but recently I've been distracted by contemporary continental discussions regarding belief, information and epistemology.

I'm sure I'll find something to comment on.
Cheers

Hi, Richard.I really like this site and the topics...

2006-09-24T01:14:00.000-04:00

Hi, Richard.

I really like this site and the topics you write about. My formal education is in economics, although I've had the benefit of a handful of philosophy courses and most of my personal reading is in philosophy. My philosophical interests drift back and forth from epistemology and logic to social and moral philosophy. Lately, I've been more preoccupied with the latter.

I blog at Degrees of Freedom on a variety of subjects, including philosophy from time to time.

Hello, RichardThis is a great blog; I'm always imp...

2006-09-01T22:38:00.000-04:00

Hello, Richard
This is a great blog; I'm always impressed by your knowledge. I often wonder where you get the time to write all this in addition to your academic work. Before finding your site, I never thought philosophy blogs could be popular.
I'd be thrilled (no joke) if you visited my blog and took a couple punches at my postings. I'm currently working my way through undergrad at the Univesity of Chicago and need some more peer review.
Keep up the awsome work!
jared d

I just finished my Ph.D. in philosophy at Temple U...

2006-07-10T22:33:00.000-04:00

I just finished my Ph.D. in philosophy at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I spend most of my time centered around the work of John Dewey and the other American pragmatists, especially as their work intersects with the theory of democracy. I have my own blog at This Is Not News, where I talk about philosophy along with a lot of other topics.

Hi, I’m an economist with no formal education in p...

2006-06-27T14:31:00.000-04:00

Hi, I’m an economist with no formal education in philosophy, so my only knowledge is from books, conversations, and introspective thought. (I did tend to hang out with philosophy majors when I was in college – long, long ago.) Nonetheless, I find philosophical thought is unavoidable for a thinking person, and I really like this blog. (Thanks to Battlepanda for pointing me here.) After reading Richard’s post on Sacrifice and Separate Persons (too late to comment?), I’m curious to know if anyone has any comment on this post in which I (following Eastern philosophy, but with my own rationalization) essentially deny the fact of separateness. (The argument is related to what Richard says about aprudentialism in the last paragraph of the cited post.)

(The pronunciation of my nom de blog, knzn, is deliberately ambiguous. If you’ve studied economics, you can just spell it out loud; if you’ve studied linguistics [or speak certain languages], you can pronounce the vocalic N; otherwise, you may have give up pronouncing it.)

Hi. I'm nedric. And I am a graduate student at a...

2006-06-03T12:03:00.000-04:00

Hi. I'm nedric. And I am a graduate student at a public university in the U.S.

My field is no longer philosophy, but I use it everyday to study relgions.

I think your blog is cool.

My name is Andrew; I'm an undergraduate student of...

2006-05-14T01:14:00.000-04:00

My name is Andrew; I'm an undergraduate student of philosophy. I read Philosophy Et Cetera on a regular basis though I don't know if I have ever commented. I enjoy the wide-ranging interests of the author and in particuarl Richard's posts on modality. =)

Ha, nicely done. Note that if you try typing "Rich...

2006-05-13T01:43:00.000-04:00

Ha, nicely done. Note that if you try typing "Richard" in that Greek-symbol font, then "pixnaps" will suddenly make a lot more sense. It amused my 12-year old self.

Hello, and welcome to the comments of Philosophy E...

2006-05-13T01:23:00.000-04:00

Hello, and welcome to the comments of Philosophy Et Cetera. I go by the name of Blar and I've been reading this blog and posting in these comments since it was just a few months old, right around when my own blog was born. I'm not an official expert on philosophy or on et cetera, but I'm interested in both and I've studied a little bit of each at the undergraduate level. And I don't know what "pixnaps" means either.

I don't post much personal information online, so I'll leave it at that.

Hi, I am probably the person who posts most often ...

2006-05-12T23:55:00.000-04:00

Hi, I am probably the person who posts most often on Richard's blog. I have been posting on blogs for a long time now generally finding posts that I don't think have robust logic and trying to point that out. (There-by annoying people on both sides of any number of debates!)

I like to write about anything and debate issues with worthy adversaries. When blogging, I tend to type my posts as fast as I can write and at the same time as I read (so excuse the bad grammar, but I'm not into wasting of time).

I believe in never attributing to malice what can be attributed to ignorance and tend to get stuck into people who accuse the other side of being evil. I'm incredibly patient (I have almost never been the first to quit a frustrating debate), and if I get annoyed I usually forget about it in a few minutes.

I also support utilitarianism.

Cheers Bros!

Thanks for all the comments so far!John - sign wha...

2006-05-12T20:43:00.000-04:00

Thanks for all the comments so far!

John - sign whatever name you want to be called by. You can create a profile by signing up at blogger.com

Hello all. My name's John B. and I'm not a philos...

2006-05-12T14:19:00.000-04:00

Hello all. My name's John B. and I'm not a philosopher. I am, however, interested in philosophy, especially insofar as I can 'use' it selfishly to sharpen and refine my own obsessions, prejudices, and maybe even ideas or discourse. I just posted to an old thread called "the god hypothesis," but I suspect my post might be more germane to a different discussion somewhere. Anyway, glad to meet y'all. Oh, and how do you create a profile? And should I sign posts with my real name ("John B.") or my blog handle ("randomatom"?)