-
One of the strangest experiences I had upon quitting teaching was that I started worrying, quite a lot, about what my former students would encounter in college. I think the reason I hadn’t worried much about this before was that, as long as I remained in the classroom, even if former students of mine were […]
-
Proponents of new gun-control legislation often seem genuinely baffled by their opponents’ position. They cannot understand how the other side can be so consistently uncompromising, especially as shooting after shooting claims scores of innocent lives. It would greatly illuminate contemporary political debate if the Left’s bafflement here could be resolved. But this is difficult. While […]
-
One of the more distasteful logical fallacies is the straw man, because its use implies a conscious intent to deceive. Honest, reasonable argument is noble on its face. But replying to an argument dishonestly makes a farce of what should have been fine. And it is shameful, and thus distasteful, to witness someone debasing themselves […]
-
Why Ayn Rand Is “Not a Serious Philosopher” Let us look more closely; what is the scientific man? A type of man that is not noble; he has an instinct for his equals and for what they need; for example, that claim to honor and recognition, that constant attestation of his value and utility which […]
-
Wonders never cease. Note: Nietzsche is wrong in the end, but right sometimes on his way there.
-
Even though he never said it, Francis Bacon is famous for the dictum, “Knowledge is power.” Like many stories we receive as history, this one is fiction. But despite the misattribution of the saying, it expresses an important truth. Let us approach that truth carefully. The Two Coalitions In living memory, there have been only […]
-
If one can view the following three videos synoptically, no more is necessary to understand why Hillary Clinton must not be president: First, she is the avatar of oligarchic status quo: (Note: this video confuses democracy and small-“r” republicanism, and the solutions it suggests are sophomoric and doomed to failure. But focus on the illustration […]
-
The United States of America was the first country in history to be founded, explicitly, on any philosophy, and is still the only country in history to have been founded on the principle of individual rights. It had taken thousands of years for a series of heroes, Aristotle foremost among them — aided by unlikely […]
-
Before we begin, please take a few minutes to put yourself into the mindset of a medieval monk. Listening to as much of this music as you can sit through is the best way I know of to do that on short notice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGfLUXtARjM When I hear this, I can imagine waking long before dawn […]
-
It’s been said that, “[s]ome men are born posthumously.” Of no one is this more true than of Aristotle — who hasn’t been born even yet. Aristotle’s logic, his gift-wrapping of the method of reason for all of humanity, was eventually reborn in Europe because it was uniquely useful. Its usefulness, and that of Aristotle’s […]