I was going to write about about the great deal of political hay that had been made over the appropriation of of the term pragmatist by the pundity but I’ve come too late to the party. This is one of the challenges of not being a four-post-a-day hardcore blogger. You get scooped. Of course with [...]
Christopher Hayes has an article in the Nation on Obama’s pragmatism (h/t Ron Chusid). I like two things about this piece:
1) It identifies the ambiguous nature of the term, and lists several theories meant by the word and
2) It concludes that the kind of pragmatism compatible with progressivism is that espoused by John Dewey, whose [...]
Anatole Kaletsky today writes of the folly of the Conservatives shift in economic policy. What is most interesting are his comments regarding their obsession with a strong pound, an obsession that has greatly damaged the British economy in the past and likely would again: Last week George Osborne showed that he had learnt nothing, by foolishly identifying the recent weakness of sterling with t
Dear Colleagues,
Two years ago Babes-Bolyai University launched a program of annual conferences dedicated to pragmatic philosophy. In 2006 and 2007 various scholars from both Europe and America...
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I wholeheartedly endorse pragmatism. That’s why I support Obama. Practicality is a hell lot more important than egomaniacal, self-driven pursuits such as those shown by the people in the current Bush administration. Honestly.
The only way democracy or civil society can take root in Iraq, devastated by military, sectarian and
political strife, is for the United States to withdraw its military presence.
But more than that, we need to rethink the effectiveness of our actions in this
region, and against the militant Salafi movement in particular. This does not mean the most responsible decision is to
remove American forces immediately, but we must ultimately face the reality
that our presence only puts a target on our backs—in...(read more)
Another day of digestion of Goldman Sachs (GS) blowout quarter sheds some light.
When the world was running around talking of the "subprime meltdown" and the "freezing of credit markets" Goldman quietly looked at the situation and placed their bets accordingly. Rather than dumping positions or just sitting tight and riding out the storm and taking huge losses like Morgan Stanley (MS), Lehman (LEH) and Bear Sterns (BSC), Goldman jumped on, rode the wave down and collected the profits.
The...
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The latest Ipsos MORI poll continues to report a strong Brown bounce and reinforce his reputation as a stalwart Prime Minister who can lead Britain through a series of crises. Amongst the strong Labour lead and satisfaction results, there are a few questions about Europe and referenda. These results are far more interesting than the British happily living under Brown:Most people think that the decision about whether Britain should adopt the EU Treaty should be decided in a Referendum of the British public, rather than in Parliament.Some 66 per cent of respondents strongly "think that it should be decided in a Referendum of the British people" while only 10 per cent strongly "think that Parliament should decide". Overall, 81 per cent believe to some degree in a referendum.This is odd because the British appear to have a fetish for European referenda, despite there being no tradition in Britain for direct democracy.British democracy is based on a Burkean attitude towards representatives,
If you would press me I would have to admit to being a pragmatic. It is, if you will, my preferred philosophy of science. Pragmatism in a nutshell simply says that if a theory is good at predicting the world as we perceive it and if it is useful in the sense that it allows us to create new technologies, then we will accept that theory and use it as if it was true. Sometimes pragmatic theories are false even though they are pragmatic. Take Newtonian physics for example. Newton's laws can explain an almost limitless amount of experimental observations. The only problem is that it is false. Experiments which are designed so that one outcome would support Newton's theory and the other outcome Einstein's theory shows clearly that the latter set of laws provide you with the more accurate predictions. Yet, because they are so practical, we still use Newton's much less confusing laws for a lot of approximations. So in this case we say that because Newton's laws works really well for almos
