No sweat.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I think that only <\/em>after last week could I make such an assertion. Then I had paper Wednesday, presentation Thursday, drive 200 miles and give a presentation Friday. <\/p>\n Speaking of which\u2026 I think the Sartre paper turned out ok. I never know on such things. My friend Sally proof read it and asked, \u201cso, ya just B.S. your way through these things?\u201d I just shrugged. <\/p>\n The presentation Thursday got the qualified praise of the German philosophy professor, \u201cvery good,\u201d followed by a 10 minute talk about what\u2019s wrong with philosophies such as that held by Julian Huxley (a so-called self-actualization \u2018SA\u2019 philosophy). Basically, Dr. Borgmann\u2019s argument was that the SA folks treat \u2018reality\u2019 as merely instrumental for their own projects rather than treating it as something to revered and recovered\u2026 <\/p>\n Then we had a great talk in the philosophy colloquium about the philosopher\u2019s place in the conversation about what America is<\/em>. (Dr Borgmann has a book coming out in the fall, \u201cReal American Ethics: Taking Responsibility for Our Country<\/em>\u201d University of Chicago Press). I\u2019ll devote a post to this alone soon.<\/p>\n Friday, exhausted, I drove to Spokane, WA and Gonzaga University for the AAR meeting. My talk\u2026 I think it went well. I had spent half the previous night organizing it into a PowerPoint presentation, so I covered all of my material, at least in an overview. And the PowerPoint had shnazzy graphics, which I hoped would wow<\/em> everyone (I don\u2019t think they did though \u2013 darned academics). In the Q&A; a fairly big-shot professor, Nick Gier (his CV is 16 pages long <\/a>\u2013 and that\u2019s how we measure things in my world\u2026) had some tough questions for me. He\u2019s takes Buddhism<\/a> to be most akin to Virtue theories, and so was subject to some of my criticisms. But his arguments were good \u2013 and the terrible terrible part was that I was just too tired to come up with rough and ready answers\u2026 so that looked kind of bad. But afterward he came up and we chatted and agreed to discuss the matter more \u2013 it was all quite cordial; and later two others who were there said I did a fine job \u2013 so my dismay afterward (Sally called and I told her I felt like I had been through a boxing match \u2013 don\u2019t forget that it was<\/em> after very little sleep and a long drive, so it wasn\u2019t just the presentation and questions\u2026) was for naught.<\/p>\n Saturday I got to relax a bit \u2013 watch other people give their presentations \u2013 nothing that really sparked my interests though\u2026 Dr. Gier is putting together a book on the origins of religious violence in Asian religions \u2013 beginning with the thesis that Asian religions have spawned objectively far less violence than the Abrahamic ones\u2026 That proved pretty interesting, but his talk was more history than philosophy or religious studies. <\/p>\n
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