Ever heard of Descartes' android daughter? This is from an essay I'm finishing up this week: "It is a defining mark of Descartes’ modernity that his texts are haunted by life-like machines. And not only his texts. Beginning in the late 18th century, sources claim that Descartes built a young-girl-like machine in a desperate bid… Continue reading Descartes’ android daughter
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Richard Stalley on Platonic Legislations (2017)
Richard Stalley reviews my book Platonic Legislations (2017) in The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition. "Dusenbury's ... suggestion that Plato engages in a critique of law undoubtedly offers a fresh and potentially illuminating approach to Plato's political and legal philosophy," Stalley writes, "and also raises some significant issues for the philosophy of law." He continues: "The… Continue reading Richard Stalley on Platonic Legislations (2017)
Did modern philosophy begin with an ancient joke?
From an essay I'm writing: "As Giambattista Vico maliciously points out, a proto-cogito is stated to comic effect in a Roman play, Amphitryon, in which a less-than-clever character mutters to himself: 'Yet when I think, I am equally certain that I am the same' (Sed quom cogito, equidem certo idem sum). It is certainly tempting… Continue reading Did modern philosophy begin with an ancient joke?
“Immanuel Kant in the Garden of Eden” Budapest
As part of a conference on artificial intelligence (AI), Dusenbury will give a lecture on the unnerving implications of Kant's 1786 essay, "Conjectural Beginning of Human History". The conference will be held on 3 May 2018, from 11 a.m. to 2.30 p.m, at the Danube Commission Building in Budapest. Rachael and Deckard, Blade Runner (1982)
“When your climate seems a permanent home”
Remember when Your climate seems a permanent home ... What griefs & convulsions startled Rome, Ecbatana, Babylon. - W. H. Auden, "The Sea & the Mirror", 1943
“Too bad. We’re in paradise.”
"Too bad. We're in paradise. Illusion is no longer possible." - Jean Baudrillard, Fatal Strategies (New York, 1990), 71
History of ideas Leuven
As part of a roundtable in honour of Prof. Carlo Ginzburg, Dusenbury will give a short lecture on Sherlock Holmes, on the rise of the term 'data' in late-Victorian England, & on IBM's 'cognitive computing platform', Watson. The roundtable will begin at 3 p.m. on 16 February 2018, in the Raadzaal of the Institute of Philosophy,… Continue reading History of ideas Leuven
Beautiful or good
But to the wise Often, often it is denied To be beautiful or good. - W. H. Auden, "Oxford", December 1937
Teubner reviews The Space of Time (2014)
Jonathan Teubner revisits Dusenbury's first book, The Space of Time (2014), in the most recent issue of Reviews in Religion & Theology (vol. 24, no. 4, Oct. 2017, p. 633–642). Teubner summarizes: "For van Dusen, ‘the soul that is dilated in Augustine's time-investigation is essentially and incommutably the life of a body (vita corporis) –… Continue reading Teubner reviews The Space of Time (2014)
Carlos Steel discusses Platonic Legislations (2017)
Carlos Steel will present his review of Dusenbury's new book, Platonic Legislations (2017), at a meeting of The Philosophical Review Club. The Club will convene in the Salons of the Institute of Philosophy, K.U. Leuven, at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, 13 December 2017.
D. L. Dusenbury 