“‘Philosophy’ means love of wisdom: John Haldane” plus 1 more |
| ‘Philosophy’ means love of wisdom: John Haldane Posted: 19 Sep 2010 07:08 AM PDT | "'Philosophy' means love of wisdom, and wisdom involves two aspects: first, an understanding of the nature of things, and second, an attitude to life, carried through into action, informed by that understanding," Haldane told the Mehr News Agency in an exclusive interview conducted by Hossein Kaji and Javad Heiran-Nia. Following is the text of the interview: Q: Do you believe that philosophy and metaphilosophy are separate from each other? Why? A: 'Philosophy' means love of wisdom, and wisdom involves two aspects: first, an understanding of the nature of things, and second, an attitude to life, carried through into action, informed by that understanding. In this way philosophy combines theory and practice. Of course each of these matters can be explored in ever greater breadth and depth and it is tempting to suppose that as science develops so answers that were once sought for in philosophy will come to be found in physics, in genetics, in neurophysiology and so on. That would be a mistake, however, for philosophy transcends empirical enquiry seeking a deeper and more ultimate account of the nature of reality, and in its practical aspect it is concerned to discover not what we can or could do but what we ought to do. Science explains the matter of the world and of the human body, philosophy addresses the meaning of both. Q: Defending religious beliefs was not tolerated in the 18th and 19th centuries. However, this has changed in our time. What factors were involved in countering that kind of mentality? A: Western intellectual culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries produced two powerful challenges to traditional religious beliefs. The first came from the advocates of 'enlightenment' who argued that principles of moral value and obligation could be derived from aspects of human nature - reason or sentiment - and that religious ethics was 'inauthentic. The second came from the advocates of 'scientific naturalism' who argued that human nature was the product of evolution - through natural selection from pre-human forms of life - and that religious accounts of human origins are mythical and at odds with the facts revealed by science. Over the course of the twentieth century it has become clear that neither challenge defeats theism, though they do require the religious believer to offer an account of how theistic positions can accommodate natural ethics and natural science. One fruitful response to this requirement lies in the recognition that while science offers and explanation of the material composition and operation of the world it says nothing about its meaning and value. John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews, where he also directs the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs. HK/HK This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php | |
| HP Envy 17, a sleek alternative to the desktop Posted: 20 Sep 2010 03:03 AM PDT The Envy 17 will give other laptop users something to be jealous about. The new HP product delivers Blu-ray and robust 3D graphics in an understated package.  HP's design philosophy when it comes to the Envy series of laptops is to borrow liberally from Apple's MacBookline, then add some of its own flavor. The Envy 17 is no exception. At less than 8 pounds without the power brick, the Envy 17 is barely thicker than an inch and includes robust media playback capabilities - including Blu-ray movies. The overall look of the latest Envy 17 hews to the understated nature of the product line, with muted grays and light, dimpled swirl details on the case. The packaging is quite plain and simple as well, and most of the documentation actually ships on an included 2GB SD card. At one point, I fired up the HP Support Assistant. My past experiences with HP's efforts to automate support have been less than stellar, but this time around, it detected a BIOS update, a number of drivers and other HP software updates, installed them and rebooted cleanly. The whole process was simpler and more straightforward than Microsoft's Windows Update scheme. Related stories HP ProBook 4520 offers professionals performance on a budget Canadian PC maker offers six-core laptop with 4TB of storage Acer's new entry-level notebooks boast Intel Core i3, i5 processors The Envy 17 as tested by PC World arrived with an Intel Core i7-720QM CPU clocking in at 1.6GHz, with a peak turbo boost frequency of 2.8GHz. The 720QM is a true quad core CPU with Hyper-Threading, so supports 8 simultaneous software threads. Boosting graphics performance is an AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5850 with 1GB of video RAM, the fastest mobile Radeon GPU short of the high end units found in heavier, dedicated gaming laptops. Rounding out the specs were 8GB of DDR3-1066 memory. The price of the system configured as we tested it, with the Blu-ray drive and 8GB RAM upgrade, is a steep $1,825, while the base configuration starts at around $1,400. It's worth talking about audio for a moment. Most laptop speaker setups are, simply put, terrible. The Envy 17's speakers actually sound pretty decent. While voices sound just a touch nasal, the overall tonal balance proved easy on the ears. Music material sounded good, as did movies. Overall, it's probably the second best audio we've heard on a laptop (a recent Toshiba unit with 50mm Harmon Kardon drivers were a tad better.) If I have any complaints, it's with the lack of bass (which is no surprise for a laptop) and the relative lack of volume with everything cranked up to eleven. Headphone audio also sounded very good, and HP's software gives you control over the overall audio experience with a graphics equalizer. The integrated iDT audio codec delivered clean, distortion free audi o.Display image quality was also robust. After getting past my initial dislike of the glossy screen (I hate all glossy screens), the overall color balance in movies and games turned out to be quite pleasing. Also pleasantly surprising was the viewing angles. No laptop LCD offers truly wide viewing angles, but the Envy 17's were better than most - even vertical shifts didn't result in complete intensity falloff, as I've seen with many other units. Page Navigation 1) The HP Support Assistant is fast and simple. - Page 12) Overall, Envy 17 is elegant and just right for video ehtusiasts and gamers. - Page 2 << Back This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php | ||
| You are subscribed to email updates from Yahoo! News Search Results for Philosophy To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment