Embarrassing philosophical oversight

[robinturner]

Amaaan, I really should be working on this philosophy paper. I want to send it off soon, because the journal I'm hoping will publish (Metaphilosophy) prefer hard copy by snail mail (they kindly agreed to allow me to submit by e-mail given my geographical position, but they wanted it as a Word document, and I have my pride). I'm also giving a talk soon at Middle East Technical University based on the same ideas, so I ought to get my ideas together.

I've got two problems. One is that I've revised this paper so many times I don't want to read it again. I know I'm a terrbile intellectual narcissist, but there is a limit to how much even I can read my own work without getting bored.

The other problem is more serious. I think I've discovered a big hole in the section on "Desire and the Good". This is where I argue that if we describe something as "good" in any meaningful way, it implies that it is either desirable in itself (for at least one person) or aids in the realisation of some desired state/event. The whole of the second paper in this series is based on this premise.

It seemed so obvious at the time - I couldn't think of anything which was good but was not desired by any person in any way. Silly Solri. After some posting on philosophy, it occurred to me that I can say something like "The lion is a good hunter." No one need desire that the lion hunt. I'm amazed and embarrased that it didn't occur to me before.

Now it looks like I'll have to rework "good" as a radial category or something. It's either that or slide slowly into teleology.

Aaaaaaaa!

(sound of Solri sliding into teleology)

Comments

totally unrelated...Turkish Music?

[kiad.livejournal.com]

I have been inundated by various middle eastern music as of late, and I have decided I would love to listen to traditional turkish music.

Could you give me some good ideas where to start and/or perhaps an mp3 or two?

Re: totally unrelated...Turkish Music?

[solri.livejournal.com]

Traditional Turkish music is very varied. Firstly you can divide it roughly into folk music (türkü), art music (sanat musikisi) and Sufi music (tasaavuf). There's also music for belly-dancing (oryantal) but that tends to be Egyptian, or at least Egyptian-influenced. Then you can divide folk music by region, ethnicity and even religion (the Alevi minority have their own music for sema - a sort of religious dance with caguely shamanic influences). They're all pretty different - the slow, sombre zeybek dances of the Aegean are a world apart from the lively, almost Celtic-style dances of the .Black Sea, and the music reflects this. Most of it doesn't sound particularly "Turkish" to Western ears - for that you probably want Istanbul Romani music.

Anyway, two good artists to start with are Kubat (male) and Zara (female). Both have amazing voices and perform a selection of songs from different regions. Their latest albums, Archive and Misafir repsectively come with booklets including an English translation (though in Kubat's case, the translation is appalling - the famous Ankara song "Misket" is translated as "musket" when it actually means "marbles"!).

It's so long since I've ripped an MP3 I've pretty much forgotten how to do it, but I'll see if I can make you a couple of sample tracks. Can you read .ogg format?