Currently it is obvious: politics is all about truth, evidence, facts, arguments, falsehood, accuracy, illusion, skepticism, stupidity. But so much of life is (see Socrates). Most of morality is about truth and falsehood, facts and fallacies. The epistemic virtues are paramount. Get that right and the rest will follow. The first thing to go when […]
I pay close attention to the syntax and vocabulary of Trump’s tweets. People have been writing about his bizarre use of quotation marks, making the plausible suggestion that he uses them so as to hedge his prose, about which he feels insecure. This sounds right to me: he is clearly uncomfortable with the written word, […]
Probably the greatest rock and roller of all time, and those guitar riffs! His songs never grow stale. No wonder the Beatles and Stones covered him religiously.
People say Trump is a narcissist. I don’t think so: I think Trump hates himself and with good reason. What he loves is his image–that garish, vulgar, money-saturated image. This is why he hates to be criticized and disrespected: it hurts his image. Once you grasp that everything he does is meant to promote his […]
I was watching Planet Earth II, the gorgeously shot nature series from the BBC, and the opening segment was about spider monkeys, with their long prehensile tails. It made me think that my book Prehension would be a best seller in the spider monkey community. Finally someone appreciates the prehensile among us! But humans seem reluctant […]
I’m reading for the first time Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading about a man, Cincinnatus C., who is condemned to die by beheading. His crime is mysterious at first, though clearly diabolical in the eyes of his gaolers. Eventually we learn that he is guilty of “gnostical turpitude”–a crime so serious as to defy definition, though it […]
Surely President Trump is casting his net too narrowly. If “the press” is an enemy of the people, surely those who support the press are enemies of the people too. Aren’t professors enemies of the people if they criticize Trump? Democrats must also be. Isn’t anyone who speaks out against the President an enemy of […]
Trump and a terrorist stand together with fists raised; caption reads, “Death to reasonable people!”
Since I retired from my job four years ago I have dedicated myself to philosophy. I have never worked so long and hard. This is a consequence of the freedom afforded by retirement: no more teaching, professional obligations, faculty meetings. That’s the thing about retirement: you can get some work done! Partly it’s a matter […]
I have a new definition of truth: correspondence to the alternative facts. Thus “snow is black” corresponds to the alternative fact that snow is black. I also have a new definition of moral rightness: an action is right if and only if it promotes the alternative good (suffering, injustice, etc). Also logical validity: entailment within […]