Author Archives

I'm a philosophy professor at the University of Lethbridge in Southern Alberta, Canada. I specialize in philosophy of war, game theory, contractarianism, and theodicy (the Problem of Evil). I am bald, fat, and ugly, but my wife loves me, so I don't care.

• WHAT IS WOKEISM?

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 20, 2023 • ( 1 )

  If I’m going to be anti-woke – by which is meant, presumably, that I’m going to remain asleep – I suppose I should get clear about what Wokeism is. Pluckrose and Lindsay (google them) define it as reified post-modernism. That… Read More ›

• THE HURT ARGUMENT

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 15, 2023 • ( 6 )

  When you don’t want people to hear what they’d like to hear, you tell yourself not that they’d be hurt by hearing it – after all, that would be for them to decide! – but rather that there are people… Read More ›

• WHAT TERRY O’RILEY TAUGHT ME

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 15, 2023 • ( 3 )

  There used to be a programme on the CBC, hosted by Terry O’Riley, called “The Age of Persuasion” and then later resurrected as “Under the Influence”. It was about advertising, and it was excellent. But remembering it now puts me… Read More ›

• HOW TO RESOLVE THE TRANS ISSUE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 15, 2023 • ( 0 )

  How do we get from (1) to (2)? And then from (2) to (3)? With a whole lot of as-yet-suppressed premises. After all, I could be lying. In fact maybe I have lied, on this very matter. In the event… Read More ›

• TWO MINOR COMPLAINTS

  By paulosophicalvimplications on February 6, 2023 • ( 1 )

  The Holocaust happened. The Exodus didn’t. Exodus-denial isn’t antisemitism, so why is Holocaust-denial?  It’s all about context, you say. Unlike Exodus-denial, Holocaust-denial is taken as an antisemitic trope. If a word means what it’s taken to mean, then why can’t… Read More ›

• DOG WHISTLING

  By paulosophicalvimplications on February 5, 2023 • ( 0 )

  Not unlike phrases – without which we can’t seem to speak – that catch on for a while and then fade away, argument strategies come in waves too. The latest is deciding – pretty much all on your own –… Read More ›

• THE DEAL

  By paulosophicalvimplications on February 5, 2023 • ( 1 )

  It’s really just a Prisoners’ Dilemma. Your first choice is you get to listen to whomever you want to listen to and I don’t get to listen to whomever I want to listen to. Your second choice, and it’s my second… Read More ›

• SIX TAKEAWAYS FROM THE WIDDOWSON AFFAIR

  By paulosophicalvimplications on February 4, 2023 • ( 11 )

  If you’ve read my penultimate entry, you’ll know that last week I invited Frances Widdowson to Lethbridge, as the first post-Covid “Guest of Dishonour” at our Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner series on Saturday, then to give two guest lectures,… Read More ›

• THE WIDDOWSON AFFAIR

  By paulosophicalvimplications on February 1, 2023 • ( 4 )

  As many Canadians will know – but I’m not sure the story has hit the international wires – I invited a certain Dr. Frances Widdowson to give a talk at the University of Lethbridge on February 1st, on a topic… Read More ›

• THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSITY

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 28, 2023 • ( 0 )

  For most of human history – and in most parts of the world to this day – there were institutions that work like this: We tell people – priests or commissars – what to tell others, who are then sent… Read More ›