Symbolic Speech

Yuengling employees dumped their union, and now the union wants us to boycott the beer.

I bought a case of Lord Chesterfield Ale, and will drink to the demise of organized labor tonight.

Eat it, unions.

Delay?

I will unfortunately not be able to offer much on skepticism anytime soon. Cicero was a hit, and explains a lot that is good about Academic skepticism. Sadly, the book by Sextus Empiricus I ordered has been much delayed. In the meantime, I've been reading this. There is a certain unfortunate agenda about it, explicit from the introductory chapter - instead of accepting what is good in the traditional, if flawed, account of the Presocratics, the book must buck tradition wherever possible, even if not always desirable. More on that later. It's not exactly bad, but the very title of the work (A Cambridge Companion to Presocratic Philosophy would have made more sense) exudes this iconoclast viewpoint. It was nice to know, for once, that Pythagoras was really, really crazy, and was not actually a vegetarian. Apparently, what Pythagoras preached was abstention from certain meats (and other foods, including beans[!]) for purely mystical reasons. Only later was the idea of reincarnation linked to diet - you'd avoid eating meat because, after all, your uncle may have been reborn as a pig, and pork would be in rather bad taste. What little sense this makes, it at least makes some. Pythagoras makes and made none. The tradition of mystical mathematics that surrounds Pythagoras is also attributed to much later followers of his ideas, and not to him or his contemporaries.

I'm sure I'll have more on the entire thing later, as well as a general criticism of the project, but despite my complaints, I'm still glad to have the work. I'm learning quite a bit about the reliability of original sources, and a misunderstanding of Thales has already been washed from my mind (ask me how!).

Sk/ceptic

I've been reading something by Tully on philosophy. Having read nothing of his except for his Catilinarian orations (and those in Latin, ugh), I must say he has a nice clear style.

I may do an entry on scepticism throughout the ages, once I've read enough about it. This is, after all, the new skeptic.

New Cornchute

My final final is today and I am flying home tomorrow, so there is some chance of an update tomorrow evening or Wednesday. Don't hold your breath, though. Meanwhile, back to servitudes.

Oh Cousin Merle, Really

I was thinking of letting the readers know of my schedule, but then half of them know already. To the other - what seemed like the worst exam proved, in hindsight, to be less difficult than thought, and the next exam absolutely has to be the easiest. Nevertheless, finals season is upon me, and while I still have a large portion of my time, I don't have the energy to think hard enough to blog. :sadcool:

Meanwhile, please analyze my unique combination of bad taste and awesome taste, won't you? See below.