I've seen you lecturing on Youtube, read your 1991 book, The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge, and copied some ideas of yours quoted somewhere about intellectual virtues (and vices). What really caught my attention, Linda Zagrebski, were two things you wrote that indicate the way you conduct philosophy:
'A truly satisfying solution to the dilemma of divine foreknowledge should be as thrilling as the dilemma itself is disturbing.'
'The dilemma of divine knowledge and human free will is difficult enough but I have discovered an even deeper dilemma...'
What these suggest is your conviction that there are solutions to even perennial dilemmas yet to be discovered and perplexing dilemmas yet to be recognized; and that the work of philosophy, therefore, is very much a live project, very worth engaging in. Thrilling isn't a word often associated nowadays with philosophy but you think the ongoing work of subtle argument, careful criticism, and creative speculation may in fact pay off with new real ideas and interpretations, not just the same old cud remasticated. There's something sanguine in your attitude about the project of philosophy I find very encouraging.
As I read that word, I was put in mind of the uplift I felt some years ago sitting in a campsite somewhere in upstate New York reading the first chapters of Whitehead's Process and Reality, that there's plenty of road ahead of us.
So too I appreciate your thoughts on virtues of the mind. The list I jotted down in my notebook ran something like this:
Intellectual vices: idleness, rigidity, obtuseness, prejudice, lack of thoroughness, insensitivity to detail, gullibility (that is, a tendency to accept things without sufficient evidence) and close-mindedness (that is, a tendency to reject things in spite of sufficient evidence.) Intellectual virtues: humility, carefulness, open-mindedness, curiosity, rigor and something (I can't quite read in my notes) that could be...courage?
Virtue ethics focuses on the cultivation of character, habits of thought and behavior, rather than on specific decisions in particular circumstances. The idea is that, given the complexity of real world decision making, and the inevitability of regrettable choices, character keeps us pointed in the right direction, learning from our mistakes, and attempting the next good thing.
So steering between the Scylla of gullibility and the Charybdis of close-mindedness is my challenge as a thinking person, and through trial and effort I can get better, provided I keep my hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.
Your written style is somewhat turgid and your presentation manner is rather plodding, but there's much to think about in what you say, so thanks.
'A truly satisfying solution to the dilemma of divine foreknowledge should be as thrilling as the dilemma itself is disturbing.'
'The dilemma of divine knowledge and human free will is difficult enough but I have discovered an even deeper dilemma...'
What these suggest is your conviction that there are solutions to even perennial dilemmas yet to be discovered and perplexing dilemmas yet to be recognized; and that the work of philosophy, therefore, is very much a live project, very worth engaging in. Thrilling isn't a word often associated nowadays with philosophy but you think the ongoing work of subtle argument, careful criticism, and creative speculation may in fact pay off with new real ideas and interpretations, not just the same old cud remasticated. There's something sanguine in your attitude about the project of philosophy I find very encouraging.
As I read that word, I was put in mind of the uplift I felt some years ago sitting in a campsite somewhere in upstate New York reading the first chapters of Whitehead's Process and Reality, that there's plenty of road ahead of us.
So too I appreciate your thoughts on virtues of the mind. The list I jotted down in my notebook ran something like this:
Intellectual vices: idleness, rigidity, obtuseness, prejudice, lack of thoroughness, insensitivity to detail, gullibility (that is, a tendency to accept things without sufficient evidence) and close-mindedness (that is, a tendency to reject things in spite of sufficient evidence.) Intellectual virtues: humility, carefulness, open-mindedness, curiosity, rigor and something (I can't quite read in my notes) that could be...courage?
Virtue ethics focuses on the cultivation of character, habits of thought and behavior, rather than on specific decisions in particular circumstances. The idea is that, given the complexity of real world decision making, and the inevitability of regrettable choices, character keeps us pointed in the right direction, learning from our mistakes, and attempting the next good thing.
So steering between the Scylla of gullibility and the Charybdis of close-mindedness is my challenge as a thinking person, and through trial and effort I can get better, provided I keep my hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.
Your written style is somewhat turgid and your presentation manner is rather plodding, but there's much to think about in what you say, so thanks.
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