Charlie Huenemann is fascinated by the ways that human lives get tangled up with ideas, theories, and abstract entities. Philosophical questions impress him, especially the ones that keep surfacing despite great historical turbulence. He has published various works on Spinoza and Nietzsche, and is Professor of Philosophy at Utah State University. Blog posts that don't make it to 3QD can be found at huenemanniac.wordpress.com. Email: [email protected]
by Charlie Huenemann In 1671, in some letters exchanged with the French mathematician Pierre de Carcavy, Leibniz mentioned his plans to create a calculating machine. Apparently, he had been inspired by a pedometer, probably thinking that if machines could count, they could then calculate. Within a couple of years, he hired a craftsman build a…
by Charlie Huenemann Generally, in any conflict between long-held, seemingly obvious beliefs and new research challenging those beliefs, defenders of the old beliefs will find themselves charged with sitting in armchairs. It never is a rocking chair, park bench, hammock, or divan. It is an armchair, the sort of chair one finds in venerable, wood-paneled…
by Charlie Huenemann (image from lthscomputerart.weebly.com) Last month (April 19, 2014), 3QD's Robin Varghese linked to an article by philosopher Lisa Guenther on the effects of solitary confinement on the mind. (The original article was published in the online magazine Aeon.) Guenther's essay is fascinating, as it provides a vivid account of how our perception…
by Charlie Huenemann In 1746, Hume returned to London after touring Europe as tutor and caretaker of the mad Marquess of Annendale. He was not sure what was next in his life. He was already 35 and somewhat ashamed of not having yet made a career for himself. He resolved to return to Scotland, but…
by Charlie Huenemann At the beginning of book three of his Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume argues that justice is something we invent. In a word, justice is unnatural. It isn't something we just see in the world, since we only ever see what is, and nothing in what we see tells us how…
by Charlie Huenemann In his middle to late thirties (over the years 1679-85), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz spent more than three years in his visits to a silver mining region in the Harz mountains. He believed he could devise new and more efficient ways of pumping water out of the deep shafts, enabling miners to dig…
by Charlie Huenemann “… a lying tongue is a man's destruction.” – The Wisdom of Solomon, 1.11 When I was ten years old, I happily discovered that I could say whatever I wanted in response to a question without lying. If my mother asked me if I had cleaned my room, I could say, “Yes,…