Blog Profile / Maverick Philosopher
| URL : | http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/ | |
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| Filed Under: | Academics / Philosophy | |
| Posts on Regator: | 3657 | |
| Posts / Week: | 16.4 | |
| Archived Since: | February 15, 2009 | |
Blog Post Archive
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Country to Rock Crossovers
I have been listening this last week to George Jones. I was pretty much unaware of his work until his dying brought it to my attention. I linked to a couple of his tunes last week. Here are a couple...
Jerry Coyne on Religion as Child Abuse
Coyne writes (emphasis added): Dawkins has taken flak for characterizing religious indoctrination of children as “child abuse.” Well, look at this picture and deny it. [The picture depicts a young child holding a sign that reads: Behead all those who...
The Absurd Again: Weak and Strong Nagelian Theses
This post is a sequel to The Absurd: Nagel, Camus, Lupu. See it for bibliographical details and for background. In his essay "The Absurd," Thomas Nagel maintains that "the philosophical sense of absurdity" arises from "the collision between the seriousness...
Ron Radosh on Salman Rushdie and the Left's Moral Equivalentism
I was fixin' to write an entry on Rushdie's recent NYT op-ed, but Radosh has done the job and has done it well.
Long Views and Short Views: Is Shorter Better?
The long views of philosophy are not to everyone's taste. If not bored, many are depressed by the contemplation of death and pain, God and the soul, the meaning or meaninglessness of our lives. They prefer not to think of...
Why Do We Need Philosophy?
Why do we need philosophy? There are several reasons, but one is to expose the confusions and absurdities of scientists and science journalists when they encroach ineptly upon philosophical territory. This from science writer Clara Moskowitz in Controversially, Physicist Argues...
Not All Muslims are Terrorists. . .
... but most terrorists are Muslims. Everyone on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list is a Muslim except for two, a woman and an animal rights extremist. Is the FBI run by 'Islamophobes'? Is the NRA run by...
Radical Islam
Obama's politically correct complacency about the threat is well-argued by Victor Davis Hanson. Bob Beckel, liberal, shows for once that even a liberal can on occasion display common sense. On the question of terminology I am pleased to see that...
The Absurd: Nagel, Camus, Lupu
I have been re-reading Thomas Nagel's seminal paper, "The Absurd," which originally appeared in The Journal of Philosophy, October 1971, and is collected in Nagel's Mortal Questions (Cambridge UP, 1979, 11-23.) Damn, but it is good. Nagel is one of...
The Inconclusiveness of Argument
He who can follow an argument will also know how not to be led by it.
If You Like to Think . . .
... you'll like my blog. If you don't like to think, you need my blog. Is Thinking Obsolete?
Islam, Radical Islam, and the the Left's Denial of the Threat
In the nine years I have been blogging I have been careful to distinguish between Islam and radical Islam (militant Islam, Islamism, Islamofascism, etc.) I can't say I have had any really good reason for this charitableness on my part....
Jeannine Pirro Tells the Truth to 'Jihad Mom'
This had to be said and Judge Pirro does a wonderful job of it. What I love about the Fox ladies: beauty, brains, and balls -- or the female equivalent thereof. "We should not be required to breathe the same...
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Zero Through Ten
Before getting on to tonight's scheduled presentation, we pause to remember George Jones who died Friday at 81, his longevity proof of the human body's ability to take a sustained licking from John Barleycorn and keep on ticking. I don't...
The Aporetics of Existential Meaning
For present purposes, an aporia is a set of propositions each member of which has a strong claim on our acceptance, but whose members are collectively inconsistent. Like many a philosophical problem, the philosophical problem of the meaning of life...
Schopenhauer on Islam, "The Saddest and Poorest Form of Theism"
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, tr. E. F. J. Payne, vol. II (Dover, 1966), p. 162. This is from Chapter XVII, "On Man's Need for Metaphysics" (emphases added and a paragraph break): Temples and churches, pagodas and...
A Callable Loan
We who thrive get used to being alive, and forget we have our lives on loan, a loan that can be called on the spot without advance notice. Compare James 4:13-17 (NIV): 13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or...
The Made Man
He who is ever on the make will never have it made. He will never be a 'made man.' There is a time to strive, and a time to be. Is the universe trying to get somewhere? It already is...
Let It Lapse
If a relationship has a troubled past, no future, and a present that is merely the transition from the one to the other -- let it lapse.
Polygyny?
Tony H asks: Your procreation argument for heterosexual marriage is consistent with polygyny, so if it is sound, it may rule out homosexual marriages, but be of great use to defending polygynists since it maximizes procreation and the perpetuation of...