Links for 2011-04-25

  • "The recognition that management theory is a sadly neglected subdiscipline of philosophy began with an experience of déjà vu. As I plowed through my shelfload of bad management books, I beheld a discipline that consists mainly of unverifiable propositions and cryptic anecdotes, is rarely if ever held accountable, and produces an inordinate number of catastrophically bad writers. It was all too familiar. There are, however, at least two crucial differences between philosophers and their wayward cousins. The first and most important is that philosophers are much better at knowing what they don't know. The second is money. In a sense, management theory is what happens to philosophers when you pay them too much."
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The younger Free-Ride offspring's soccer team has been playing in a regional tournament this weekend, and we're girding our loins and guarding our shins to go out and play a second day of tournament games.
From the new experimental philosophy reader, edited by Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols:
Philosophers are still grumbling about Lawrence Krauss, who openly dissed philosophy (word to the philosophers reading this: he
Back in the 1600s, when neurology was born, it wasn't scientists who were looking at brains. The word scientist didn't exist. Instead, those visionary folks would have called themselves natural philosophers.

When I was first promoted into a management position, they sent me off to a two week course in management theory. Over the years I discarded much of what they taught me in those two weeks (though not everything: I can still calculate an IRR), but at the time it was an invaluable crutch. I may not have known how to manage, but I could look and sound like I did.

So, yes, very much a subdiscipline of philosophy.