Justifying my existence

Who am I and why am I here?

I am an academic philosopher whose primary interests are in science and logic. Often, after I've read a provocative article or book, or had an interesting conversation with someone in or around my department, my mind is swarming with obscure and confused ideas. These ideas bounce around in my head for a short while, and I sometimes scratch an especially persistent one on the back of an envelope -- but usually they just lose their mental inertia and evaporate, crowded out by thoughts of dinner, my cats, or whatever.

I decided to create this blog in order to give those ideas something (very slightly) higher to aspire to than the back of the envelopes Capitol One keeps sending me. Hopefully, posting them here will force me to make them a bit more clear and distinct. And if anyone ever reads this blog, they could help me cut down on the obscurity and confusion as well.

Why the title?

For those who are not historians of philosophy: Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza and certain other 17th C. philosophers thought large chunks of our supposed knowledge are based on "obscure and confused ideas." I don't know whether this view is true in general, but it certainly holds in my particular case.