A Common Non Sequitur

It seems that in political/philosophical discussions, no matter what you're talking about, someone will attempt to argue against your view by injecting "nuance" into the debate. Or at least, they'll explain how the difficulty of the questions we're discussing means that we should hesitate to claim confidence in our beliefs. The tricky thing about this…

Short Response to “X is a social construct” Arguments

The mere fact that something is a social construct does not mean that the thing has no essential features. Construction of all kinds is constrained by rules. For instance, the construction of a stable building requires taking into account the law of gravity. You can point at any given building and say "it could have…

Past and Future in Augustine and Heidegger

I recently read through Augustine's Confessions in its entirety for the first time. While in school, I read excerpts, but there were parts of it that I never got to. The part that most struck me was the part during which Augustine discusses time. In particular, reading Heidegger at the same time led me to question…

The Anti-Thrasymachus

In Plato's Republic, Socrates and his interlocutors discuss the meaning of Justice. What is it? According to one character, Polemarchus, Justice is giving to each what he is owed. This probably sounds about right, to most people. Another character has a much more controversial opinion. Thrasymachus believes that Justice is the advantage of the stronger. In…

Lisbeth Salander is the Übermensch

Today I bought a copy of The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. It's the third book in a series by the late Stieg Larsson, of which I have read the first two. The first book is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I'm not sure if I can recommend the books. There's lots of sex and…

Mixed Motivations

Sometimes it's hard to tell why I'm doing what I'm doing. Am I reading all these difficult books because I actually want to, or because I want to be able to say that I've read them and impress other people? To some degree, it's both. I want knowledge for its own sake. But I also…

Equality and Mediocrity

There's a scene in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead in which a mediocre playwright, Ike, reads a mediocre play to the fictional Council of American Writers. The initial feedback is strongly negative. The consensus seems to be that the play is trash. But then one listener, a well-regarded theater critic, says that it's great, and that he's…

Faith and the Pursuit of Truth

There was an op-ed in the Daily News yesterday that had harsh things to say about Bill Cosby. Of course, he deserves it. The op-ed also referred to Cosby's lawyers as "soulless." What did they do to merit such criticism? They're defending Bill Cosby. It's understandable that people don't care much for criminal defense lawyers, especially those…

What’s a Postmodernist?

I've written before about postmodernism. There is some ambiguity about what postmodernists are, which is why I like to be precise in condemning postmodern dogmatism rather than postmodernism generally. Most people who condemn postmodernism, however, condemn the philosophical turn away from objective truth. In some ways, I don't think this turn is a bad thing,…

Space is not Nothing

Parmenides argued that, because Nothing cannot be, multiplicity, movement, and change are all impossible. We observe multiplicity, movement, and change every day, though. By reductio ad absurdum, it appears that Nothing must be. And yet Nothing, by definition, is not. How, then, can we affirm the possibility of multiplicity, movement, and change without simultaneously affirming a contradiction,…