Correlation is not causation. Yes it is. In fact that’s all it is. Isn’t that exactly what Hume showed us? You can’t see a cause, you can only infer it. And you can only infer it from a correlation. Sheesh!… Read More ›
Month: August 2017
JURAL NULLIFICATION
What’s doing the work in justifying some political arrangement we’ve made is not whatever the official justification might be – as, for example, in the preamble to the Second Amendment to the American Constitution – but rather that in virtue… Read More ›
RES JUDICATA
Res judicata is Latin for a matter that’s already been decided. Here’s one: It’s a res judicata that no conversation, including this one, can get off the ground unless some things are taken to be a res judicata. Like what?… Read More ›
WALLS
Here’s the history of the world in seven words: Walls go up and walls come done. The demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam remained militarized for 21 years. The Berlin wall stood for just over 30. The Korean peninsula… Read More ›
HOW TRUE BELIEVING CAN BE A CRITICAL-THINKING-SKILLS PARALYTIC
I’m not a neurologist but … I’m told that when the doctor tests your reflexes with that rubber hammer and your lower leg springs forward, the message isn’t going all the way up to the brain. I guess that’s because… Read More ›
AGW AND THE ARGUMENT AD POPULUM
I’m guessing that there was a time in Europe – say the late 16th Century – when 97% of the population believed in the truth of the Gospels. The dissenting 3% were Jews or Moslems. Should a Jew or Moslem… Read More ›
WHAT’S MY MOTIVATION?
Once you believe, as most of us do, that 9/11 was the work of nineteen perhaps guileless young men, sent on that mission by a few older and wiser men, you need to have a hold on their motivation, either… Read More ›
A COMPLETE COURSE IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION IN ELEVEN MINUTES
There are as many Islams as there are Moslems. There are as many Christianities as there are Christians. And there are twice as many Judaisms as there are Jews. This is because for any one of us it’s invariably “On… Read More ›
OH BUT THAT’S DIFFERENT
As a philosopher of mind Kant was beyond brilliant. As an ethicist he was an idiot. Kant asks us to consider two scenarios: I steal your wallet, you steal mine. If I think the one is okay, I have to… Read More ›
WHAT TO DO WHEN A COLLEAGUE GOES AWOL
What things need to be licensed, what can but needn’t be, and what shouldn’t be? Doctors, engineers, pilots, certainly. But some people have argued, though mostly tongue-in-cheek, that if anyone needs to be pre-qualified it’s parents. Requiring a license to… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 