Arbitrary Marks

As any readers still left out there will have noticed, Arbitrary Marks has gone very quiet. I fully intended to keep up a regular blogging schedule this semester, but have found that I’m much busier than I anticipated and–this is the reason for this post–reticient to share my thoughts in progress online.
I’m not even sure [...]

This month’s Philosopher’s Carnival had a pretty light group of submissions…below are the bloggers who made the cut:
Alexander Pruss suggests a thought experiment about language, in which you have a curious lisp, causing you to sound like you’re speaking Hittite. Thus, the question, What Language Am I Speaking?
Tom Kow explains why he thinks ” Intentionality [...]

Will be posted later this evening…pardon the delay…

Send post as PDF to

I’m headed to Chicago to attend the AAR (American Academy of Religion) conference and hope to find time to put up a few talk summaries. I’ll be focusing on the Buddhist studies meetings, but probably also find time for some of the cognitive science talks.
Also, the Philosopher’s Carnival is here on Monday, so get your [...]

And why did my informal fallacy bingo cards not make the Leiter Reports, huh? Okay, maybe not getting into the Baltimore Sun has something to do with it…

Send post as PDF to

Last night I saw Religulous with some friends at the downtown Alamo Drafthouse. One good thing about the Drafthouse is, however poor a movie turns out to be, you’ve at least had some good beer and snacks during your two hour stay.
I won’t say that Maher’s recent docu-flick is atrocious, but I did have some [...]

When faced with a particular species, whose days seem to be numbered, regardless of any effort humans can muster, could a Buddhist response be to let the being slip into extinction and not to induce suffering by keeping a few representative beings cooped up in zoos?

So, how many did she violate in the debate on Thursday?*

Maxim of Quality
Maxim of Quantity
Maxim of Relation
Maxim of Manner

*I recognize that technically, Palin wasn’t making conversational implicatures, but still, given that Grice proposed these as the rational underpinnings of communication, the fact that she really violated/stretched all of them is interesting…

Send post as PDF to [...]

So, yes, it’s been intolerably quiet here at Arbitrary Marks. Or “on” Arbitrary Marks, depending upon how you understand the semantics of blogs. Since I am working on reading and haven’t been (yet) formulating my thoughts into coherent arguments, below are a couple of topics that I’m considering. They’re set out in very sketchy terms, [...]

I’ve been a bad philosophy blogger. But just in time for tonight’s presidential debates, I give you:
Informal Fallacy Bingo!
You and your friends can download this free PDF and play bingo during tonight’s debates. Just put an “X” over the spot where the speaker commits one of these errors. For advanced players, confident in their ability [...]