Wonky Links

Abundant guest blogger Frank Pasquale has been issuing some interesting posts over at Concurring Opinions.  I am biased because Frank is kind enough to guest blog here at MH Blog, but I particularly like the way his (subjective) normative preferences are always plainly stated.  Frank and I have had several conversations across blogs and otherwise in which we have discussed the value of subjectivity, and this is further evident in the way he weaves narratives into his analysis of health policy (see this collection for further analysis).

In this regard, Frank also writes consonant with the ethos of the Renaissance and medieval humanists who stressed the importance of the subject in thinking about ethics.  Montaigne, the patron saint of MH Blog, is the paragon of this exemplum, and the reason why is contained in the subheading of this blog: C'est moi que je peins (it is myself that I paint).  Montaigne was acutely aware that his Essais were nothing if not his own subjective views on all manner of social and cultural practices.  The verb essai itself means to attempt, to assay, which is exactly what Montaigne was doing. 

So, whether one agrees with Frank's policy positions (and I freely admit to agreeing with many of them, though often for slightly different reasons), his perspectives are always worth engaging.  We are subjective creatures, and my dissertation on pain will evaluate the merits of limning the Self with the veneer of a constructed and dubious notion of objectivity.

In any case, Frank has several excellent posts, concluding with his most recent post, which references epicycles and market-based health care.  Frank, anyone familiar with Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution would be quite aware of the significance of the metaphor (a personal favorite of mine and an elegant demonstration of the inferential power of Occam's Razor).

Comments

[Frank]

Thanks for the kind words, Daniel. I would only replace the word "subjective" with "intersubjective"...but I will leave the Habermasian analysis of validity, legitimacy, sincerity (or truth, justice, beauty) for after xmas!

I also want to back the wonderful Montaigne reference with a thought from Iris Murdoch: "Man is a creature who makes pictures of himself and then comes to resemble the picture." from p. 75 of Existentialists and Mystics.