24 September 2008

I Dream a Genius

Not a philosopher or classicist among the MacArthur 'genius' fellowships this year.  


(A point of method.  Shouldn't the very first genius fellowships be awarded to those who have a genius for recognizing genius, and then we can proceed from there?)

But I thought you might be interested in seeing all past recipients from those fields.  

Classics
Ann Ellis HansonHistorian
Leslie V. KurkeClassicist and Literary Scholar
Dirk ObbinkClassicist and Papyrologist
Thomas G. PalaimaClassicist
Gregory VlastosClassicist and Philosopher


Philosophy
Stanley CavellPhilosopher
Patricia Smith ChurchlandPhilosopher
Leszek KolakowskiHistorian of Philosophy and Religion
Richard RortyPhilosopher
Thomas M. ScanlonPhilosopher
Judith N. ShklarPolitical Philosophy

Now, if only genius were received as a gift, as much as the fellowship.

I'm Back

Hi, it's me again. I thought I'd resume blogging on ancient philosophy and see if anyone notices.

Actually, I won't see if anyone notices, since I don't care much about that, and that's not why I blog.

It was refreshing to take a break, and I was contemplating stopping for good. But then in reflecting upon my work habits for the day, I realized that I was consistently wasting half an hour after lunch reading Drudge, or checking e-mail for the nth time, or (even worse) looking at pseudo-necessary purchases on Amazon or eBay. Thus, I figured, why not blog instead? Call that the 'maximin argument' for blogging. It's the least worst waste of one's time. (Say that five times fast.) By the way, that's also the maximin argument for reading this blog.

Also, my wife told me not to stop blogging. (End of argument.) (Hey, but what does that mean .... ?!)

Also, it seemed wrong to blog when there were so many reviews of worthy books waiting to be commented upon, as, for instance, this review of James Warren's introduction to the Presocratics (which apparently no one has commented upon over at the BMCR blog).

Also, I wanted to see how my blog looked on Google Chrome.

And that's all for the day. If Aristotle's right, to do just this much is enough to be half-way to resuming as before.