mscp autumn workshop

I will be speaking at this on Friday:

The MSCP is pleased to announce two new regular free events to the MSCP calendar, the Autumn and Spring workshops. The inaugural Autumn workshop on Friday, 8th of May, will be a forum regarding the importance, legitimation and relevance of philosophy today. Is philosophy outmoded? Does it still resemble its traditional forms? What is the relation between genuine thinking and the research output of the university system? Together we shall address such questions and we invite you to participate with your own questions and answers.

Where?
The Gryphon Gallery, 1888 Building,
The University of Melbourne.

When?
11am-5pm
Friday, 8 May 2009

Cost:
Free

on never having been

In an article in the New York Times on genius, David Brooks writes:

[t]he latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice.
Fair enough. But what Brooks doesn't consider is that success -- and genius for that matter -- are not simply positive, static, categories. Whether you have to be puritanical in order to be successful surely depends on the kind of society in which you live. As any good dialectician knows, “there is no category, no valid concept that might not be rendered invalid at the moment when it is cut off from the concrete context to which it really belongs.”

As an aside, next time you're feeling indescribably shitty at something you've just read in the paper or seen on the tv, ask yourself whether the author or journalist has been sufficiently dialectical...

They never have been.