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Monthly Archives: August 2008

Animal Rights

Friday, August 29, 2008

I find it deeply troubling when I read various blogs concerned about animal rights that they have constant recourse to two main concepts: (1) animals did not give consent to procedure X and (2) animals did not choose procedure X. Both are closely related, but they are analytically distinct. Most recently, one animal blogger was [...]

Filed in Animals | | Comments (3)

Correspondence

Sunday, August 24, 2008

In a paper I was reading last night, the author made reference to the article forming the basis for a much longer book-length work. The essay appeared in 1990. Eighteen years later, the book has not yet appeared. I decided to email the author and enquire about the work – did it stall? is it [...]

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Aristotle

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Nearly ten years after I read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as a first year undergrad – and nine years after I first read his Politics as a second year – I think I am starting to appreciate his work. Perhaps this is confirmation of Heidegger’s proposition that one should study Aristotle for ten to fifteen years [...]

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Eastern Promises

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Two general rules: (1) I rarely write about movies here and (2) David Cronenberg movies tend to be overrated, pretentious pieces of shit. I’m breaking the first rule, but the second rule stands: Eastern Promises is largely a giant, heaping piece of steaming poo. The only saving grace for the movie is Aragorn/Viggo Mortensen, who [...]

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Another Recommendation

Sunday, August 3, 2008

My friend and mentor, Lorna Weir, has been quite busy as of late. Another one of her papers, “The Concept of Truth Regime” [pdf], appears in the current Canadian Journal of Sociology 33(2). “Truth regime” is a much used but little theorized concept, with the Foucauldian literature presupposing that truth in modernity is uniformly scientific/quasi-scientific [...]

Filed in Foucault, Sociology | | Comments (3)

Primal Liberty

Saturday, August 2, 2008

It has been suggested that the Indian depicted on the bottom right of the frontispiece to Thomas Hobbes’ De Cive – the representation of primal libertas – was inspired by John White’s watercolors. Below is Plate 48 from America 1585: The Complete Drawings of John White edited by Paul Hulton (U. North Carolina Press and [...]

Filed in Barbarians, Thomas Hobbes | | Comments (3)

Note on Schmitt’s “Constitutonal Theory”

Friday, August 1, 2008

In Part I, ยง3 “The Positive Concept of the Constitution,” discussing the principle that “the constitution in the positive sense originates from an act of the constitution-making power,” Schmitt notes, “Considered juristically, what exists as political power has value because it exists.” The general point Schmitt is making – and this general point concerns the [...]

Filed in State, Sovereignty & Violence | | Comments (2)

Musical Friday – 200,000km

Friday, August 1, 2008

Last Saturday I broke 200,000km on my car. The following song – appropriately enough, I think – was playing: Corb Lund Band “Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier” [mp3] from the album of the same name. For those unfamiliar with Corb Lund, he can be thought of as the Joel Plaskett of Alberta. Some may recognize “Gonna [...]

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