Friday, October 23, 2009

Homicide

HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another — the classification is for advantage of the lawyers.

2009 Update: Inverted nostalgia. Philosophy from the seed.

21 comments:

the amoeba said...

HOMICIDE, n. The force driving the genesis of the entourage, the armored car, the black helicopter, and other forms of preservative. HOMICIDER: see SOYLENT GREEN.

E. Levinas said...

Ethics is first philosophy. Homicide might be philosophy from the weed.

k. riggs gardner said...

According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Levinas's philosophy has been called ethics. If ethics means rationalist self-legislation and freedom (deontology), the calculation of happiness (utilitarianism), or the cultivation of virtues (virtue ethics), then Levinas's philosophy is not an ethics.

Levinas claimed, in 1961, that he was developing a “first philosophy.” This first philosophy is neither traditional logic nor metaphysics, however.[1]

It is an interpretive, phenomenological description of the rise and repetition of the face-to-face encounter, or the intersubjective relation at its precognitive core; viz., being called by another and responding to that other.

If precognitive experience, that is, human sensibility, can be characterized conceptually, then it must be described in what is most characteristic to it: a continuum of sensibility and affectivity, in other words, sentience and emotion in their interconnection.[2]

firesign theatre said...

Judge Poop: "Do you swear to covet property, propriety, plurality, surety, security, and not hurt the state? (Say 'what'.)"

Mudhead: "Wha ...?"

Matthew Weiner said...

Did anyone know I'm the writer and Executive Producer of AMC's hit television show, Mad Men? I also created the HBO classic, The Sopranos.

The Sopranos is not invertedly nostalgic, but Mad Men is distinctly 1960s retro. The cast of characters are Madison Avenue advertising execs who drink excessively during the day while smoking a pack or two of cigarettes. The women all have fabulous shoes.

sauerkraut said...

Your definitions kill me.

Anonymous said...

We have a homicide going on here in Hawai'i. Today it the first day of furloughs. No school for kids. Sad. We are killing our kids slowly but surely instead of helping them along.

Ariel the Thief said...

Let's ask Moses. I have always been curious to know his excuses...

quilly said...

According to the dictionary, there is no difference between homicide and suicide.

HOM, n. same as;

I, personal pronoun referring to one's self.

CIDE, prefix killer

Therefore, homicide is the same as killing myself, and if I have killed myself I am dead and therefore beyond punishment by man.

TLP said...

So if I slay a guy whose mother is dead, I can tell the jury that my philosophy is that his mother must be nostalgic for him and I was just helping her out?

I gotta write this down. I might need it someday.

k. riggs gardner said...

Somehow, I find E. Levinas' link to "Caveat Emptorium" vaguely unsettling.

Jim said...

Yesterday Houston had gone ten days without a homicide. Before the day was over all H*ll broke loose.
..

Doug The Una said...

Well, and Genesis, Amoeba.

The weeds are well fertilized, monsieur.

Thanks, Karen. I did not know that.

OC, well done finding an honest judge.

I see the confusion, Mr. Wiener. Would you say your work is more or less inverted over time?

Sauerkraut, the target is mutual discomfort.

Thom, you'll just have to breed more.

Excellent point, Ariel. Thou shalt not...ok after this thousand, though.

You sure that's a personal pronoun, Quilly?

TLP, just refer his honor to this blog. Ought to fix ev'rythang.

Karen, even a philosophy needs business.

Well, Jim, we can be thankful for the 10 days, right?

Nessa said...

Dead is dead, regardless of the journey.

Silly Saturday #4 - Purdie Pyrate's Halloween

weirsdo said...

If you are using the encyclopedia to argue that Levinas' philosophy is not an ethics, Karen, I would say first that Levinas' philosophy does address rationalist self-legislation. That would occur in the "saying" that responds to the "precognitive," or extra-cognitive ethical experience of Substitution. Levinas also explains why freedom in and of itself is NOT an ethical experience, an explanation that seems very hard for the postmodern West to grasp. As for happiness, Levinas is not alone in his problems with utilitarian attempts to link happiness to ethics; on the other hand, Levinas' discussion of enjoyment DOES clearly link it to the ethical.
Perhaps the author of the Stanford Encyclopedia article would be interested to know that not only Levinas, but other philosophers such as Kristeva, Martha Nussbaum, and Charles Taylor, as well as many cognitive scientists, are increasingly linking ethics precisely to "a continuum of sensibility and affectivity, in other words, sentience and emotion in their interconnection."

k. riggs gardner said...

weirsdo, May I suggest you direct E. Levinas' rebuttal to:

Edward N. Zalta, Senior Research Scholar, Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford University.

Zalta's research specialties include:

Metaphysics and Epistemology
Philosophy of Logic/Philosophy of Logic
Philosophy of Language/Intensional Logic
Philosophy of Mathematics
Philosophy of Mind/Intentionality

Zalta has taught courses at Stanford University, Rice University, the University of Salzburg, and the University of Auckland, and has lectured in various universities in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Slovenia and Israel.

His other philosophical interests include: modal logic, formal semantics, contemporary analytic philosophy, contemporary history of philosophy (Bolzano, Brentano, Frege, Meinong, Husserl, Russell, early Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine), modern philosophy (Descartes -- Kant), normative ethics, biomedical ethics, and computers and ethics.

Zalta is also the Principal Editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

k. riggs gardner said...

(And yes, the above information is completely copied & pasted from a Google search query).

weirsdo said...

Ad hominem defenses do not impress me, Karen. I am sure that others will engage him in similar debates, given his scholarly activities.

weirsdo said...

P. S. I note that Zalta's observations are carefully couched in if-then statements. It is entirely possible that he and I are not in fundamental disagreement about nature of ethics, in which case your use of him here would constitute an observational comment on, rather than a disagreement with, my view of Levinas, which is derived from his own statements. (And who would be more of an expert on himself than he?)

k. riggs gardner said...

I hope you weren't implying that I was trying to impress you, weirsdo. I obviously am not philosophically scholarly enough to do anything other than copy and paste someone else's argument.

I prefer to read about Annie's burnt-up wardrobe, Pansi's horrible spelling and orcs.

Anonymous said...

four choices
i vote
none of the above

jah