User:Tom Morris

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

Revision as of 19:26, 1 February 2009

I'm a (post)graduate student in Philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London and have a BA in philosophy and religion from the same university. In my spare time, I'm involved with developing software (mostly in Ruby) to help make the Semantic Web a reality. My personal site is tommorris.org.

I'm based near London, and am interested in organising Citizendium London meetups, possibly Research Days, where - maybe with the institutional blessing of academic or research libraries, we descend as a group, and collaboratively work on articles for a day. I'm interested in hearing from anyone who's interested in such a possibility, and academic or research libraries who would be willing to let a bunch of Citizendium authors in to read your books. More details on User:Tom Morris/London Research Day.

See User:Tom Morris/University Reading Lists for a list of university reading lists (you'll see why when you get there).

User:Tom Morris/Draft Style Guide is a style guide I'm working on.

If you enjoy my contributions to Citizendium (or any other site), please feel free to leave me a tip.

Current status

I'm bloody busy in real life. It may take time for me to respond to e-mails and messages posted on my user talk page. Hopefully this may be eased somewhat towards the end of February.

Current Page List

• Bertrand Russell [r]: (1872–1970) British analytic philosopher, logician, essayist and political activist. ^[e]
• Friedrich Nietzsche [r]: (1844–1900) German philosopher and writer who developed key concepts of morality, religion and the contemporary culture of Europe. ^[e]
• Tim Berners-Lee [r]: British software developer famous for creating the World Wide Web. ^[e]
• Semantic Web [r]: Tim Berners-Lee's concept of a Web whereby collections of assertions about the state of the world are linked together in much the same way as web pages are. ^[e]
• The Republic (dialogue of Plato) [r]: Socratic dialogue on the nature of justice through imagining a new city state. ^[e]
• Feminism [r]: Movement seeking the emancipation of women from discriminatory gender roles and laws. ^[e]
• Theodor Adorno [r]: (1903–1969) German philosopher, sociologist and musicologist and Frankfurt School theorist. ^[e]
• Popular culture [r]: Commercialised folk culture that exists for the masses; opposite of high culture. ^[e]
• Capital punishment [r]: The practice of punishment of a crime through state-sanctioned killing. ^[e]
• Psychology of religion [r]: Study of the psychological tendencies and predispositions associated with religious belief, activity, practice, expression and experience. ^[e]
• Hans-Georg Gadamer [r]: (1900–2002) Leading philosopher in the field of hermeneutics, the art of interpretation. ^[e]
• Human rights [r]: Natural civil and political rights considered universal and applicable to all human beings worldwide. ^[e]
• Fascism [r]: Political ideology of the far right that seeks national unity through patriotism, collectivism, subservience of the individual and opposition to liberalism. ^[e]
• Social Darwinism [r]: Efforts to draw political conclusions from the theory of evolution by natural selection. ^[e]
• Racism [r]: Belief in the difference, and often superiority, of one racial group over other racial groups. ^[e]
• Euthanasia [r]: The act of assisting in the death of an animal or patient, often to end suffering. ^[e]
• Resource Description Framework [r]: W3C standard for exchange of metadata about Web resources. ^[e]
• Yochai Benkler [r]: A law professor at Harvard University who wrote The Wealth of Networks, a book on the legal economics of mass internet collaboration. ^[e]
• Church of Scientology [r]: Controversial religion based on the teachings of American author L. Ron Hubbard. ^[e]
• Social conservatism [r]: A political ideology that holds to a belief in following cultural tradition and traditional, often religious morality. ^[e]
• Anti-intellectualism [r]: Opposition to intellectualism, intellectuals and the views and methods of intellectuals. ^[e]
• Government [r]: The system by which a community or nation is controlled and regulated. A government is a person or group of persons who govern a political community or nation. ^[e]
• Supreme Court of the United States [r]: The final federal court of appeals in the U.S., consisting of nine Justices. ^[e]
• Friedrich Hayek [r]: (1899–1992) Austrian School economist and political philosopher who argued for free-market capitalism. ^[e]
• Affirmative action [r]: Policy of giving preference or favor to members of groups (such as racial minorities and women) who have suffered past discrimination or prejudice. ^[e]
• University [r]: A type of institution that provides higher or tertiary education. ^[e]
• Uniform [r]: An outfit which is prescribed or ceremonial based on one's position, employment, membership in an organization or societal status. ^[e]
• British Library [r]: National reference library and archive of the United Kingdom. ^[e]
• Harvest Festival [r]: An autumn celebration of the harvest in the United Kingdom. ^[e]
• White nationalism [r]: Political movement aiming for a separate nation that exists solely for people of a white, European ethnic origin. ^[e]
• John Rawls [r]: (1921–2002) American liberal political philosopher and professor at Harvard University. ^[e]
• Mysticism [r]: Religious practice attempting to induce experiences of oneness with the divine or transcendent. ^[e]
• Margaret Thatcher [r]: The first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, famous for her free market views and for successfully waging the Falklands War, frequently called the "Iron Lady". ^[e]
• Martin Heidegger [r]: 20th century German philosopher who is widely considered to be one of the key figures in the founding of Existentialism. ^[e]
• Copyright [r]: An exclusive property grant on creative works granted to authors of those works for a period set by law. ^[e]
• Oxford English Dictionary [r]: Primary reference work on the English language and its evolution. ^[e]
• Genesis [r]: First book of the Torah and the Hebrew Bible. ^[e]
• Thomas Kuhn [r]: (1921–1996) American philosopher who revolutionized philosophy of science by describing science as being driven by paradigm-defining revolutions rather than steady progress. ^[e]
• The Guardian [r]: Daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom. ^[e]
• New Testament [r]: Second part of the Christian Bible, containing books about the life of Jesus and early Christianity. ^[e]
• Seung-Hui Cho [r]: Virginia Tech. student who shot and killed 32 people and wounded 25 others. ^[e]
• Neoconservatism [r]: A political philosophy and ideology which combines many traditional conservative opinions with an emphasis on the importance of foreign policy and using American power to push democracy forward. ^[e]
• Rush Limbaugh [r]: American radio host and right-wing political commentator; "favorite columnist", American Conservative Union ^[e]
• Iraq [r]: Country in the Middle East, currently transitioning from rule by the US. ^[e]
• Library of Congress [r]: The world's largest library, which has a division that provides research for the U.S. Congress; although the United States has no official library, the Library of Congress has the role in practice, especially as a cataloging authority and containing the Copyright Office ^[e]
• Poststructuralism [r]: A set of theories and ideas that describe how human beings relate through language and meaning to the world and themselves. ^[e]
• Karl Barth [r]: German Protestant theologian, author of Church Dogmatics and founder of Neo-Orthodoxy. ^[e]
• Ideology [r]: An organized set of ideas and ways of understanding the world, usually normative, and often on political, economic, ethical or philosophical subjects. ^[e]
• Software development [r]: Processes and procedures for developing software that matches the needs and requirements of a user. ^[e]
• Sudoku [r]: Game of logic that uses numerical symbols. ^[e]
• Dewey Decimal Classification [r]: System for library classification created by Melvil Dewey based on decimal numbering. ^[e]
• Scouting [r]: International movement providing activities for young people started by Robert Baden-Powell in 1908. ^[e]
• Andrew Keen [r]: British journalist and author of Cult of the Amateur. ^[e]
• Source code [r]: Human-readable code which a compiler turns into a compiled piece of software or an interpreter runs. ^[e]
• Existentialism [r]: Twentieth century philosophical and cultural trend that sees human life as being self-authored, rejecting pre-written essences of human life. ^[e]
• Religion in the United States [r]: Article describing variety and evolution of American religion. ^[e]
• Celebrity culture [r]: A culture in which people pay a high level of attention to celebrities and aspire to become celebrities, often through reality television. ^[e]
• Reality television [r]: Television genre based on following the lives of people in normal or staged situations; opposite of 'scripted' television. ^[e]
• Shareware [r]: Practice of free distribution of software to encourage purchase. ^[e]
• Humanities [r]: Academic disciplines which deal with the human condition and what it is to be human. ^[e]
• Immanuel Kant [r]: (1724–1804) German idealist and Enlightenment philosopher who tried to transcend empiricism and rationalism in the Critique of Pure Reason. ^[e]
• Protocols of the Elders of Zion [r]: Anti-Semitic forgery alleging that Jews and Masons control the world through underhanded means. ^[e]
• EVE Online [r]: Massively multiplayer online space simulator and combat game. ^[e]
• London Underground [r]: London's metropolitan subway network. ^[e]
• Capitalism [r]: Economic system based on the private ownership of resources and industry for the purpose of profit. ^[e]
• Stephen Jay Gould [r]: (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist, paleontologist, historian and popular science writer. ^[e]
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel [r]: (1770–1831) German idealist philosopher, most famous for writings on Geist and dialectic. ^[e]
• Ludwig Wittgenstein [r]: (1889–1951) Austrian-born philosopher, author of the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations. ^[e]
• Existentialism [r]: Twentieth century philosophical and cultural trend that sees human life as being self-authored, rejecting pre-written essences of human life. ^[e]
• Philosophy of Religion [r]: Branch of philosophy concerned with religion. ^[e]
• John Stuart Mill [r]: (1806–1873) British political philosopher, ethicist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, most noted for his defense of liberalism in On Liberty. ^[e]
• Thomas Aquinas [r]: (1225–1274) Catholic theologian and philosopher, author of Summa Theologica, a bedrock of Catholic thought and teaching. ^[e]
• Monotheism [r]: Belief in only one God. ^[e]
• Alan Turing [r]: British mathematician, code breaker and computer pioneer. ^[e]
• Ludwig Wittgenstein [r]: (1889–1951) Austrian-born philosopher, author of the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations. ^[e]
• Sin [r]: An immoral act or omission considered by Christians and other religious people to be against divine law, or offending God. ^[e]
• Hermeneutics [r]: Study of the methods used in interpreting texts. ^[e]
• Judith Butler [r]: (1956—) American feminist post-structuralist philosopher, author of Gender Trouble. ^[e]
• Robert M. Price [r]: (1954–) American New Testament scholar and one of the leading proponents of Jesus mythicism. ^[e]
• BarCamp [r]: Network of free technology unconferences organized on the Internet. ^[e]
• Edwards v. Aguillard [r]: 1987 Supreme Court of the United States case which found Louisiana's 'equal treatment' law to be an unconstitutional breach of the Establishment Clause. ^[e]
• Command line [r]: A user interface through which textual commands are entered into the computer, ^[e]
• Territorial Army [r]: Primary reserve land force of the British Army. ^[e]
• Michael Ruse [r]: (1940–) Philosopher of science with a primary interest in evolution. ^[e]
• Conservatism [r]: Political principles and practices that oppose radical reform, emphasising respect for existing institutions and traditions, and often involving support for the free enterprise capitalism. ^[e]
• Portable Document Format [r]: File format created by Adobe Systems for document exchange. ^[e]
• Web 2.0 [r]: A description of the WWW that allows for greater social interaction between producers and consumers, authors and readers of content, to the point where such distinctions are meaningless. ^[e]
• Gun [r]: Either a general term for firearm, or a type of artillery with a relatively long barrel with respect to caliber, giving the projectile a fairly flat trajectory ^[e]
• No Logo [r]: 2000 book by Naomi Klein arguing that an economy based on branding is unfair, destroys jobs and the public sphere. ^[e]
• Mouse (computing) [r]: Device used for pointing to objects on computer screens. ^[e]
• Eric S. Raymond [r]: (1957—) Developer of and evangelist for open source software. ^[e]
• Silicon Valley [r]: Part of the San Francisco Bay Area in California that is home to a large number of technology companies. ^[e]
• British National Party [r]: British far-right populist and nationalist political party that advocates for Britain to become exclusively white. ^[e]
• Darwin Awards [r]: Humorous award given to those who "do a Service to Humanity by removing themselves from the Gene pool". ^[e]
• Discovery Institute [r]: Conservative think-tank based in Seattle; best-known for promoting intelligent design creationism. ^[e]
• Afrocentrism [r]: Add brief definition or description
• Circumcision [r]: In male humans, removal, by cutting, of the foreskin (prepuce) from the penis; may be for cultural, medical, or religious reasons ^[e]
• Jesus mythicism [r]: Skeptical position on the question of the historicity of Jesus Christ, denying historicity and claiming that Jesus was a myth or legend. ^[e]
• AIDS denialism [r]: Denial of the mainstream, scientific view of HIV and AIDS. ^[e]
• Final Fantasy VIII [r]: 1999 Square-Enix role-playing game for the Sony PlayStation and PC. ^[e]
• Stockholm [r]: Capital of Sweden. ^[e]
• Polytheism [r]: Belief in many gods. ^[e]
• Rape [r]: Non-consensual, forced sexual intercourse. ^[e]

To-Do List

• Newbie recent changes
• Wanted Pages
• User:Tom Morris/Write-a-Thon Article Suggestions for Thought and Books
• Category:Need def
• CZ:Education Workgroup needs a list of articles
• Philosophy, Media, Computers
• User:Tom Morris/United Kingdom Article List
• Universals [r]: General or abstract objects such as concepts, qualities, relations, and numbers, as opposed to particular objects. ^[e]
• Conspiracy theory [r]: Belief that a covert and deceptive organization or people is responsible for important world events, and that these people are hiding their own involvement, acting from behind the scenes and spreading misinformation. ^[e]
• Forer effect [r]: Add brief definition or description
• Software [r]: Computer programs or documentation used as part of an operating system, distinct from hardware. ^[e]
• Links from Theology/Related Articles
• Write some regex magic to change Religion/Catalogs to a table.
• Clean up Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan articles.
• European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and Human Rights Act 1998
• Jack Kevorkian
• Ontology

Public to-do list

If there's something you'd like me to do on Citizendium, please put it in a list below and sign it. I may or may not do it.

• (replace this with an item)