...and new material on linear algebra.

There is lots of work left to do and topics to cover. The book is not static. We are constantly asking ourselves what's working or not, how the pictures can be improved, tightening the connection to Simbrain simulations, etc. We’d love your feedback!

Highlights include a new chapter on mechanistic interpretability with David Udell, a complete rewrite of the transformer chapter (with Polyphony Bruna added as a co-author and lots of help from @pierrebeckmann.bsky.social ), enhancements to the word embeddings chapter with Ellis Cain...

In the formula above I would have to learn to say “frak V”, “var-rho” and “var-phi” in my inner voice before I could work with it. If I can’t find a standard pronunciation, I will just invent something, like “the Prince symbol”. Is anyone else like this? Has anyone written about this?

I like the part about what you could learn from him you could better learn from me. Franz had some spicy in him!

There are different ways to resolve the apparent tension. Maybe Brentano assigned the lecture on the paradoxes of the infinite and Husserl subsequently found Bolzano's other works (the Wissenschaftslehre?) in the bookstore. Anyway it's fun stuff. Also "Husserl Chronik" always makes me laugh...

A much earlier entry in the Chronik, from the other bookend of Husserl's professional life (the student years, 1884/6), confirms Gregor's point about Brentano introducing Bolzano to Husserl. Interestingly, Osborn is again quoted, this time saying Brentano familiarized Husserl with Bolzano's work.

Here is the source of the story about Husserl discovering Bolzano in a second-hand bookstore. It's from late in Husserl's life, 1935. We have to rely on Spiegelberg recounting something Osborn said, so there are a few sources of potential error

I went back to the sources. The full story is interesting, and raises a few historical questions. I'll lay it out in a separate post.

Also an important influence on Husserl. I recall a story about Husserl discovering Bolzano’s work just browsing a bookstore, but that could be wrong. It’s a vague memory.

She also discusses such notoriously obscure concepts as “chiasm” and “flesh” in a refreshingly clear way. Along the way we also discuss cognitive science, archaeology, Dreyfus, Hegel, Hans Jonas, romanticism, embodied cognition, different approaches to reading the texts, and much more.

There's a ton of other cool threads. For example, Robin defends a continuity theory, denying that there are any deep rifts in Merleau-Ponty’s work. She argues that he pursues a singular philosophical project across his early, middle, and late works.

I described how I always struggled with Merleau-Ponty, finding it difficult to organize his rich imagistic prose into a systematic theory. But Robin's interpretation really unlocked the text for me, by embracing its ambiguous elements and its resistance to stabilization.

Agree! But (as you suggest), it's kind of ironic that Fodor is the one saying this, given how anti-interdisciplinary he could be, especially about neuroscience. Just sayin...

Yes the book is great. If ever there was a page turner in German philosophy this is it. The wizard thing fit his persona as the romantic counterpart to all the rationalist stuff. I think he called himself "magus". He had a mystical experience in his youth. So there is a bunch of backstory to this.

In the end Kant ignored Hamann’s response, which insulted Hamann. A byproduct of the affair was that it introduced Kant to Rousseau.

#Philosophy #Kant #Education

The longer discussion is fascinating, a capsule summary of the conflict between enlightenment and romanticism, between optimism and pessimism about reason. This whole section of Beiser’s book (“The Fate of Reason”) is a lively and fascinating read, filled with all kinds of juicy details.