“Letter to the Editor: Laughable philosophy - Tulsa World” plus 3 more

Letter to the Editor: Laughable philosophy - Tulsa World
Professor David Furley: Celebrated scholar of Greco ... - The Independent
Philosopher Smith honored with Humboldt award - Princeton University
ConocoPhillips Shows Boost in First-Quarter 2010 After ... - Market Wire

Letter to the Editor: Laughable philosophy - Tulsa World

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 02:39 AM PDT

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Letter to the Editor: Laughable philosophy

By Barbara Purtell, Broken Arrow
Published: 4/30/2010 2:21 AM
Last Modified: 4/30/2010 4:41 AM

The next time you hear Oklahoma Republicans brag that they want to keep the government out of the lives of individuals, try not to laugh out loud.

The anti-abortion bills they have rammed through the Oklahoma Legislature are cases of extreme government intrusion into the lives of individuals.

One of their laws would force women to pay for an ultrasound and listen to a doctor talk about the fetus within an hour of the procedure, hoping emotional distress will change her mind. The other would protect a doctor from suit if he, because of his personal beliefs, chooses not to tell a pregnant woman that her baby is deformed or congenitally ill and should be aborted.

They do want women in even the most extreme cases of poverty, rape, incest or potentially deformed babies to be forced to have those babies. However, they do not believe in government-mandated health care that would help these women care for the babies.

Once the women deliver the babies, legislators wash their hands of any responsibility.

Behind the legislators who write these proposed laws are extremely conservative religious groups who believe in neither the rights of women nor the separation of church and state. And then there are the cowardly legislators who don't really believe in the principles behind this legislation. They just think that voting for it will help them get re-elected.

Letters to the editor are encouraged. Each letter must be signed and include an address and a telephone number where the writer can be reached during business hours. Addresses and phone numbers will not be published. Letters should be a maximum of 250 words to be considered for publication and may be edited for length, style and grammar. Letters should be addressed to Letters to the Editor, Tulsa World, Box 1770, Tulsa, Okla., 74102, or send e-mail to letters@tulsaworld.com.

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Professor David Furley: Celebrated scholar of Greco ... - The Independent

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 04:02 PM PDT

David Furley was one of the 20th century's outstanding scholars of Greco-Roman philosophy. The quantity of Furley's published output is perhaps modest by today's standards. But virtually every item is a gem, and many have become classics.

He was educated at Nottingham High School and at Jesus College Cambridge, where he became an Honorary Fellow. In 1947, after war service in Burma and a return to Cambridge to complete his degree, he took up an assistant lectureship in the Departments of Greek and Latin at University College London. Following promotions up to the level of reader, he moved in 1966 to a professorship at Princeton University. He remained there until his retirement in 1992, which was marked with a conference in his honour at the Institute of Classical Studies, London, and not long after by his return to residence in England, at Charlbury in Oxfordshire.

The most recurrent motif of his work was the systematic contrast between two radically opposed philosophical and scientific worldviews, atomism and Aristotelianism, his analyses typically shedding equal light on both traditions. The leading exhibit is undoubtedly his brilliant 1967 book Two Studies in the Greek Atomists. Here he took two central themes of Epicurean atomism and reconstructed the origins of each, above all by minute study of the relevant texts in relation to their Aristotelian background. A model of lucid and judicious scholarship, this monograph did much, perhaps more than any other single book, to bring Epicureanism into the philosophical mainstream.

Another way in which Furley's work proved seminal lay in his genius for writing a short but incisive article which provoked an entire micro-industry of debate. His classic "Self-movers", a mere 15 pages in the original 1978 publication, became the focus of a subsequent conference at Pittsburgh, which in turn led to a multi-authored volume (Self-motion from Aristotle to Newton, ed. M.L. Gill and J. Lennox, 1994).

Another such case is "The rainfall example in Physics II.8" (1986), which argued with amazing concision – it weighed in at just six printed pages – that, contrary to the current orthodoxy, Aristotle in fact believed that rainfall is purposive, and not merely the mechanical outcome of meteorological processes. Again, a debate accumulated around the article, with far-reaching implications for Aristotle's natural philosophy.

A third case is "Lucretius and the Stoics" (1966). Lucretius was one of Furley's heroes (the Epicurean Latin poet's eloquent repudiation of the fear of death was read at his funeral). The article, running this time to an impressive 20 pages, presented a major challenge to the orthodoxy that Lucretius's polemics are typically directed against Stoic rivals. Resistance to this article's findings has been widespread in Lucretian circles, but it still has its defenders, and the debate remains evenly balanced.

Furley's services to scholarship were wide-ranging. For example he co-authored with J. S. Wilkie a fine annotated edition, Galen on Respiration and the Arteries (1984); translated the pseudo-Aristotelian On the World for the Loeb Classical Library (1955), as well as parts of Philoponus's commentary on Aristotle's Physics (1991); was editor of the journal Phronesis from 1968 to 1972; and also edited, among other collective publications, the second volume of the Routledge History of Philosophy (1997). His final long-term project was a major two-volume work, The Greek Cosmologists. The first volume appeared in 1987, but the eagerly awaited sequel never followed. Meanwhile most of his articles were collected in his 1989 book Cosmic Problems. These succinct masterpieces may well prove to be his most enduring intellectual legacy.

He was widely regarded within the ancient philosophy community as one of the subject's most brilliant practitioners. He received Princeton University's Howard T. Behrman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities in 1984, and was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1990. From 1969 to 1982 he directed Princeton University's Program in Classical Philosophy.

In collaboration at first with Gregory Vlastos and Terry Penner, and later with Michael Frede, John Cooper and Alexander Nehamas, he helped build Princeton's reputation as a world-leading centre for the study of ancient philosophy. While still in the UK he had co-founded the Southern Association for Ancient Philosophy, and in September 2005 he was one of a tiny handful of survivors from the inaugural meeting present in Oxford to help celebrate its 50th birthday.

Furley's second wife, Phyllis, predeceased him by nine months. They were much-loved figures at Princeton, in and beyond the classics community. The play-readings that they held in their house at Ringoes over a period of 27 years became legendary. He particularly cherished his graduate students, many of whom went on to distinguished careers of their own. He found relaxation in bridge, furniture-making and bird-watching.

He is survived by his first wife Diana and their two sons, John and Bill (the latter himself a classical scholar), by four grandchildren, and by three generations of step-offspring from his second marriage.

David Sedley

David John Furley, Greco-Roman scholar: born Nottingham 24 February 1922; taught at University College London 1947-1966; Professor of Classics 1966-74, Charles Ewing Professor of Greek Language and Literature, Princeton University 1974-1992; Fellow, British Academy; married 1948 Diana Armstrong (divorced 1966; two sons), 1967 Phyllis Ross (died 2009); died Banbury 26 January 2010.

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Philosopher Smith honored with Humboldt award - Princeton University

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 08:19 PM PDT

Philosopher Smith honored with Humboldt award

Posted April 29, 2010; 11:18 p.m.

| e-mail | print

by Nick DiUlio

Michael Smith, a Princeton professor of philosophy, has been selected to receive a Humboldt Research Award, which will support research in collaboration with colleagues in Germany.

The award is granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Bonn, Germany, to internationally recognized scientists and scholars in honor of lifetime achievements in research.

The award will enable Smith to spend up to one year at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where he will collaborate with colleagues from the university's philosophy department. There he hopes to focus on the relationship between values and reasons for action and the ways in which understanding of each of these relates to an idealized account of rationality.

Smith, who is the McCosh Professor of Philosophy, first joined the Princeton faculty in 1985 after teaching at Wadham College at the University of Oxford and at Monash University in Victoria, Australia. In 1989 Smith returned to Monash for five years, then taught at the Research School of Social Sciences in Australia for nine years before returning to Princeton in 2004.

Smith's research focuses on ethics, moral psychology, philosophy of mind and action, political philosophy and philosophy of law. He is the author of "The Moral Problem," for which he was awarded the American Philosophical Association Book Prize, and "Ethics and the A Priori: Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-Ethics." He is the co-author of "Mind, Morality and Explanation: Selected Collaborations." He is also the editor of "Meta-Ethics" and the co-editor of "Reason and Value: Themes From the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz," "The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy" and "Common Minds: Themes From the Philosophy of Philip Pettit."

Smith is an associated faculty member of Princeton's Department of Politics. He has held visiting posts at universities in Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The Humboldt Foundation grants up to 100 Humboldt Research Awards annually.

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ConocoPhillips Shows Boost in First-Quarter 2010 After ... - Market Wire

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 02:17 AM PDT

SOURCE: Industrial Info Resources

SUGAR LAND, TX--(Marketwire - April 30, 2010) - Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas) -- Oil and gas giant ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) (Houston, Texas) reported significant overall improvements for the first quarter of 2010, with higher crude oil and natural gas liquids prices boosting earnings in the company's Exploration and Production segment. Net income for the quarter was $2.1 billion, compared with only $800 million in the same period last year. Industrial Info is tracking more than $22 billion in active ConocoPhillips projects worldwide.

For details, view the entire article by subscribing to Industrial Info's Premium Industry News at http://www.industrialinfo.com/showNews.jsp?newsitemID=159552, or browse other breaking industrial news stories at www.industrialinfo.com.

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