An examined life?: Two days spent on "P of S" & Current music

Thursday 8 January 2009

Two days spent on "P of S" & Current music

Generally my focus remain history of science rather than philosophy of science, but in order to set myself up for the new term, I have spent the past two days doing P of S rather than H of S. The second term moves us through issues like realism and the nature of scientific laws, finishing off with Kuhn and a couple of weeks on issues like the sociology of science and feminist theories. I have been mainly working on overviews of these issues. None of these issues (except possibly some of the sociology of science) are really among my favorite issues and I will have to give some thought to how much work I do on them before the exam.

So I have actually read a couple of chapters of our main textbook (Salmon, etc Introduction to the Philosophy of Science) - the chapters by Glymour on "Realism and the Nature of Theories" and McGuire on "Scientific Change: Perspectives and Proposals". I have read a couple of chapters of Mary Hesse's Revolutions and Reconstructions in the Philosophy of Science and several articles, including a very good overview article by Rouse on P of S over the 20 years to 1998. One or two more days on this and then I can return to History of Science.

Other current themes include the starting of the process of looking for a new job. If I can find something by March, say, then 18 months later I may be in a position to start a PhD. But any delay in finding something threatens the Oct 2010 start date.

I also need to find a way to do some more exercise. I have been doing the occasional half hour of yoga, but really need to do some cardio stuff - probably on the bike or swimming at White Horse.

And rather a surprise, I have sold about 75 cds in the last week or so for around £350 net of the various costs. I had hoped to sell about £200 a month this year, so a good start. I reckon we might have up to 1,000 cds that I could easily sell. At £4-5 each, that soon starts to add up.

Current music - working my way through a download of 25 cds by the Japanese "drone metal" band, Boris, and a 23 cd discography of The Cure. I had forgotten how good a track like "The Same Deep Water as You" was. And to mark the death of Ron Asheton, I will be moving on next to the complete works of Iggy and the Stooges.