The humane philosophers Prof Peter Smith of Cambridge University and Robert Paul Wolff, Emeritus Prof of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst deserve our appreciation for a number of important items - their books, appreciation of serious music, and especially these days for their blogs, Logic Matters and The Philosopher's Stone, respectively; the links to each is to be found on my sidebar. I won't go into at this moment why they have been important to me except to say that Prof Wolff's book In Defense of Anarchy has had a lasting influence on my thinking and Prof Smith's writings (his books and blog) on philosophy, logic, and chamber music CDs and recitals have given me a great deal of pleasure while teaching me a great deal about his subjects, especially logic, philosophy of maths, and Gödel's Theorems.
Prof Wolff's fascinating autobiography is to be found on his blog at this link http://www.box.net/shared/n72u3p7pyj along with a tutorial on Marx. Prof Wolff was for many years the chair of the African-American Studies Department at U. Mass. He is also the author of an important book on Kant.
For the last three years or so my daily routine has started with Logic Matters followed by the online Guardian edition. It's a shame that here in the America of the racialist Republican party, the religious right, and the spineless Democratic party with its Republican, Wall Street beholden leader President Obama, one must resort to the British press to get the news about the absurd political situation that America finds itself in. These last words are occasioned by my return to philosophical anarchism - one TV, one vote - in Prof Wolff's sense. I'm also returned to Karl Kraus's dictum - When faced with the lesser of two evils, choose neither. Kraus is also noted for the remark, A politician is a person who never wants to know who he/she is.
Prof Smith retires this year. I certainly hope that he continues to blog. We can learn from these two humane retirees.
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