85th Philosopher's Carnival Finally Digs Out!

This week Buffalo Philosophy welcomes the philosophy blogging community to the 85th Philosophers' Carnival! (more information here) The weather outside is frightful; the snow in Buffalo is presently piled about 6 inches deep (as seen in this photo), and this month has seen a similar Blizzard of philosophical thinking and intriguing argumentation. We've rounded up some the best philosophical work on the web for your beginning-of-the-semester reading pleasure. Enjoy the first Carnival of 2009, and try not to track any snow into the living room!

I. Philosophy of Mind

Winter is a terrible time to be in a body: all that bitter wind, slick ice, and clinging snow are dangerous and unbearable. So to distract us from the physical aches and pains of winter, we're kicking things off with a few posts concerning the mind.

1. Gualterio Piccinini, at the group Cogsci/Phil of Mind blog, Brains, sarts us off with some thoughts on Smolensky and the harmonic mind:

http://philosophyofbrains.com/2008/12/31/classicism-connectionistm-and-the-harmonic-mind.aspx

2. Gary Williams, at the blog Minds and Brains puzzles over Qualia:

http://philosophyandpsychology.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/thoughts-on-qualia-and-phenomenology/

II. You Can't spell Eastern without RAE!

Winter is a good time for indoor activities. And for North American Philosophers one indoor activity usually overshadows all the rest. I am of course talking about the yearly Eastern meeting of the American Philosophical Association, this year in Philadelphia. While I was not present for the meeting this year, it seemed to to kick-off no small amount of interest in the philosophy blogging community. Thom Brooks, of the Brooks blog, who was at the Eastern APA, offers some insightful analysis, and further links to discussion of the goings on, here:

http://the-brooks-blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/american-philosophical-association.html

Of course, on the other side of the Atlantic, our friends and colleagues in Great Britain love a good winter! And not to be upstaged by our indoor-winter-productivity, they have been busy sifting through the results of the UK's latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), Thom Brooks has some thoughts on the matter here:

http://the-brooks-blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/rae-results-in-philosophy.html

III. Metaphysics

On dreary winter days like this one, it seems like the cold and snow will never go away. The world slows almost to a standstill and with a surfeit of time on one's hands to sit and think, one might come to some rather interesting conclusions about the nature of time itself. Justin Donhauser of Buffalo Philosophy offers us a brief argument that times might be emergent, here:
http://buffalophilosophy.blogspot.com/2009/01/times-are-emergent-properties.html

The bitter cold and lake effect snows here in Buffalo give us the strong desire to escape the chill. What better way to escape than to deny that we are entirely physical beings? Justin Donhauser of Buffalo Philosophy offers some interesting arguments for his own theory of mind body pluralism:

http://buffalophilosophy.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-is-triism.html

Finally, shoveling foot-and-a-half deep snow-drifts off of my driveway and sidewalk reminds me that philosophers did not invent the problem of the many, they only perfected it! Here

3. Robbie Williams at Theories 'n' Things discusses two version of this staple metaphysical problem:

http://theoriesnthings.blogspot.com/2007/12/two-problems-of-many.html

IV. Epistemology

Winter is the season to stay indoors, it's also the season of cabin fever and the Donner party. How will you react to a few weeks of solitary confinement? It's gut-check time in the philosophy-blogosphere.

Richard Chapell at Philosophy ETC offers us some ruminations on intellectual black holes (fyi: try not to stand to close to the event horizon):

http://www.philosophyetc.net/2009/01/intellectual-black-holes.html

Ezra Cook at Subjunctive Moods offers some insight in Jonathan Schaffer's work on evidence:

http://www.ezracook.net/2009/01/schaffer-on-evidence/

Christopher Khawand at Philpropsophy looks at a Wittgensteinian response to the problem of induction:

http://philosophy.intellectualprops.com/analytic-tradition/a-wittgensteinian-answer-to-the-problem-of-induction-why-the-scare-quotes-are-merited/
And Larry Niven of Rustbelt Philosophy offers us some critical remarks on part of K. Anthony Appiah’s “Cosmopolitanism”

http://rustbeltphilosophy.blogspot.com/2008/12/late-thursday-seriousness-blogging.html

V. Philosophy of Religion

A snow storm in Buffalo can occasionally lead even the strongest and most faithful among us to the depths of despair! Good thing for us Clark Goble at Mormon Metaphysics is doing yeoman's work to give us some intriguing reasons to re-think Anselm's Ontological Argument

http://www.libertypages.com/cgw/2008/12/30/anselms-ontological-proof-for-god/

VI. Miscellaneous

They say no to snowflakes are alike, but what about snowdrifts or snowbanks? In the wintery blasts of Buffalo, size matters! Apparently it matters to Andrew Bacon at Possibly Philosophy as well!

http://possiblyphilosophy.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/cardinality-and-the-intuitive-notion-of-size

And finally, being cooped up indoors for long periods of time makes it all the more important that we have good manners. To wit, Paul Gowder at Uncommon Priors offers the following thoughts on the philosophy of etiquette:

http://uncommon-priors.com/?p=1157

This concludes the 85th Philosopher's Carnival. We hope to host you again later in the year. We at Buffalo Philosophy wish everyone in philosophy-blogging community a safe, happy, and prosperous new year! Look for the next carnival (the 86th) Feb. 9 at Choaspet.