I never thought I'd say this, but I really wish the New Criterion would go back to its derivative warblogging days. Don't get me wrong, it's marvelous that Roger Kimball just got his copy of Philosophy for Beginners in the mail. And it's marvelous that he wants to blog all about it. I just wish he would read up a wee bit more before he started bashing academics. We've already looked at his thoughts on science, and now here's the latest, taking on the notion of "truth"—a proud philosophical tradition that started with Plato and ended with, um, Nietzsche apparently. Why end there? Who knows? Kimball suggests that "the school of impatience"—which I take to mean "the leftist academy"—is preventing us from asking the question, "What is truth?" nowadays. He also sneers at "many educated people" for being "deeply impressed" with Nietzsche. Again, perhaps this means leftists, but I'm not sure.

By the by, if you see Richard Rorty—who is both a leftist and an academic—running around telling people that 20th century analytic philosophers are mainly concerned with whether "our beliefs about the world... are somehow isomorphic to the pre-existing contours of reality", well, please tell him to stop. It's just so hard to rag on professors when they're not acting like little buffoons.


UPDATE: Crikey! He's already got another one up about "the perils of sexual liberation." The man moves quickly. Well, this is going to be a full time job keeping up.