#philosophy


2015

blog  Another experiment with Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

Sep 2015

Spent some time hacking over the weekend. And here's the result: a minimalist interactive version of Wittgenstein's Tractatus.


blog  Towards an ontology for philosophy.

Jun 2015

I enjoyed watching a recent presentation by Barry Smith about ontology engineering and in particular its application in the field of philosophy itself. The presentation was hosted by the InPho team at Indian University, whose ongoing work based on creating an ontological backbone for Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has drawn the attention of many.


2012

blog  Wittgenstein Tractatus and the JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit.

Jul 2012

What do the JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit and the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein have in common? Definitely not much, at first sight. But the moment you realise that Wittgenstein was so fascinated with logic that he wanted to organise his masterwork in the form of a tree structure, well, you may change your mind.


2010

blog  Mathematics and our body.

Oct 2010

"Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being" [amazon link] is a recent book by cognitive scientists George Lakoff and Rafael Nuñez, in which they argue that the origin of our mathematical ideas (even the most abstract and immaterial) is to be found in the materiality of our everyday experience. That is to say, in the body.


blog  Creativity and personal mastery.

Apr 2010

By Srikumar S. Rao, who can be found also on TED talks. His class syllabus, Creativity and Personal Mastery is also an interesting read. Here's an excerpt (which is actually a quotation from Anthony De Mello):


blog  Victim of the Brain.

Mar 2010

If you've heard about the 'brain in a vat' thought experiment but never had the time to read more about it, this movie is a quite pleasant dramatisation of the argument!


2009

blog  The Four Pillars of the Ethical Company.

Nov 2009

Some deeply inspiring and wise words I found in the mystical Guitar Craft's website, which is not a religious sect but one of the creations of unconventional 60's guitar hero Robert Fripp (best know for his work with King Crimson). The Guitar Craft series of events is going to end on its 25th anniversary, this coming March, as desire of Fripp himself. The website will close down too, so soon or later I feel I should do some copy&paste of all the interesting thoughts you can read in there..


blog  Visualizing Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

Oct 2009

Shameless self-plug: some time ago I made an alternative visualization of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. No special reason, just because I wanted to do some experimentation with a text I was already working on.


blog  Logic and Ontology.

Jun 2009

I found an interesting article on the SEP this morning, it seemed to me well written and clearly argumented. 'Logic and ontology', by Thomas Hofweber. Defining logic and ontology is not an easy thing - maybe because it is just a truism to say that there is one unifying view of what they they are. Something like physics... it is likely that no physicist would tell you that there is one thing  such as 'the physics', but a range of different approaches and theories which constitute physics as a whole.


blog  Academic Earth - hours of free lectures online.

Mar 2009

Academic Earth is an organization founded with the goal of giving everyone on earth access to a world-class education. If you can't go to university and follow lectures there the traditional way, there's plenty of stuff on this website for you to enlarge your horizons!


2008

blog  Quotation from Gregory Bateson.

Jul 2008

Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. In the 1940s he helped extend systems theory/cybernetics to the social/behavioral sciences, and spent the last decade of his life developing a "meta-science" of epistemology to bring together the various early forms of systems theory developing in various fields of science.


blog  The British Wittgenstein Society gets started.

Mar 2008

The British Wittgenstein Society (BWS) is opening its doors (well online at least): it'll add up to the aready existing Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society (ALWS), International German Ludwig Wittgenstein Society (ILWG) and North American Wittgenstein Society (NAWS). I am trying to get PhiloSURFical noticed and possibly tested by them - let's see how it goes ;-)


2007

blog  Discovery: philosophy in the digital Era.

Jun 2007

It looks like the semantic web rumor is spreading out fast, also in the philosophy circles:


blog  Philosophy On the Air.

Jun 2007

It's nice to see the ancient philosophy keeping up with the new technologies - shows how the soul of philosophy is immortal, and linked to men instead of publication mechanisms. There's a new podcast available, Philosophy Bites, created by Nigel Warburton (who teaches at the OU) and David Edmonds. The podcast makes available interviews on hot topics with eminent actual philosophers.


blog  Internet research ethics: a first journal.

Mar 2007

I'm busy writing an article these days, which sort of feels like being in a long and tiring trip to the underworld.. So, since I can't really spend time on anything else but I still wanted to post something, here's a brief philosophy/technology related news: