Arbitrary Marks

I’m not sure how many people read these sort of posts, aside from the bloggers themselves, but I’m curious what were the most frequently visited, commented, etc. posts of 2007. So, below the fold is a summary for others who are curious.

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This is a promised review, a year in coming. Soft Skull Press sent me a copy of this book about this time in 2006 and I thought I’d get around to reading it when the semester was over. Wrong.
Honestly, after my disappointment with the other text they sent me, I was a little hesitant [...]

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. Matthew 11:12.

I asked Andrew Simone to be a guest blogger here, quite aware that he would write in a vastly different style than is usual for this blog. As much as I enjoy Michel Foucault (in fact, I just bought his Genealogy of Knowledge with my Borders Bucks yesterday), I’m not a continental philosopher. Okay, I’m not a philosopher, I’m a philosophy student. But the tradition which I imbide regularly is analytic.

I’ve always wondered how far apart the two “traditions” really are. After Foucault, I am curious about the discourse in which we label philosophies as “continental” or “analytic” and what kinds of assumptions those entail about what knowledge is.

A few weeks ago I discussed Frank Schaeffer’s new book, Crazy For God, anticipating I’d read it during my summer break. Well, I wound up tearing through it in a couple of days just recently, then emailing Schaeffer for a few follow-up questions:

Another semester has gone by, and I have to make room for more books. Rather than lug them down to my local used bookstore or sell them on Amazon.com, I’m making them available first to my readers–for free (just the cost of shipping). Leave a comment if you’re interested and I’ll email you to get your shipping info. First come, first serve. Whatever books aren’t gone in seven days will go to the local bookstore or be donated. (Please know that many of the books have some underlining and margin notes, but none are so marked up a to be illegible.)

Thanks to Andrew for contributing to the blog in my absence. I’ll have a few things to say about his posts later, but right now I’m uploading Flickr photos of my vacation to Arizona, watching Madagascar on ABC and enjoying Christmas lights.

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The reason I wrote the parable in the first place was to manifest how choice may mean violence, specifically choice for philosophical or religious perspectives. If you, say, decided to choose Buddhism over Christianity (or vise versa), then the fact that you find both choices is cheapening, it commodifies them–at least in the West.
However, what [...]

I’ll let ck’s introduction stand as is, even if a person would have to have tasted a few bottles of Lafite before she could ever begin to be called a connoisseur. I will, however, present an autobiographical parable which will give you a sense of my cognitive posture, critique of contemporary thought, and my [...]

While I’m away at my undisclosed vacation spot next week, blogger and wine connoisseur Andrew Simone will be posting here.  I first made Andrew’s acquaintance via a mutual friend’s blog–we both attended the same seminary, but at different times.  He blogs at These Things Thought and Clusterflock, generally on topics related to language, knowledge, continental philosophy, and [...]

This post at Philosophy et cetera got me thinking about my own experience in academic social circles. For full context, you want to go to Feminist Philosophers and read the comment thread, then see what Richard has to say about it. But the gist of the problem is this:
A female philosopher complained that [...]