various

Gratton and I have finished chaperoning each other on a brief Manchester Canal Street clubbing outing. Fun while it lasted, but we’re not 23 anymore, and one of us is married. But that’s a nice area along the canal, and we did run into a number of the younger conference attendees briefly. Good to see them again. And great fun overall.

Back to philosophy news… Michael Austin wrote in, mildly dismayed that I signed up for the OOO term rather than my former OOP. His (reasonable) point has to do with my own version of the ontology/metaphysics distinction. I’ll have to think this over. For blog readers who aren’t “trained” philosophers, be aware that there is no universally accepted definition of the difference between metaphysics and ontology. Heidegger uses the former as a bad term and the latter (often) as an OK term. I myself use it in this way: ontology deals with features pertaining to all entities, metaphysics with specific types of entities. But other variants are possible.

“Ontology” is a surprisingly late term; early modern period. Metaphysics, famously, goes back to the compilers of Aristotle.

Michael’s point is well taken. And one thing I do worry about with the gradual erasure of the distinction between published work and incomplete electronic musings is that it might become harder to toy with ideas on blogs without accepting final responsibility for them. I still tend to think things like: “unless I’ve published it in a book or article, don’t hold me to it.” But the difference will soon not be as strong as it has previously been. I’ll be shocked if paper journals are still with us in 10 years, and only slightly less shocked if paper books are still a pre-eminent medium in 2019.