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.

• HOW TO SURRENDER IN THE LANGUAGE WAR

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 9, 2020 • ( 0 )

  What do Edward Sapir, Benjamin Lee Whorf, George Orwell, and post-modern feminists have in common? They all triangulate on the fact that we think in words. And so if you can control what can be said, you can control what… Read More ›

• NOTES ON THE CULTURE WAR

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 8, 2020 • ( 0 )

  The Cancel Culture War that’s been on high simmer for several years now has heated up considerably since the death of George Floyd on May 25th. That’s probably a good thing, insofar as the conflict is finally revealing what it’s… Read More ›

• THE MEANING OF BLACK LIVES MATTER

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 8, 2020 • ( 2 )

  Had Rudolf Carnap been around today, he’d have pointed out that “x lives matter” is not a well-formed formula. Well-formedness requires that “x lives matter to some y”. And at that, perhaps only at some time t, and only under… Read More ›

• THE RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE STORY

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 3, 2020 • ( 1 )

  Here’s another entry in the ongoing saga of news that isn’t. Some of my followers and even more of my readers live in the United States. Does that mean I’m trying to interfere in their upcoming presidential election? Well, I’m… Read More ›

• POLICING 101

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 2, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Poor people don’t have a lot. If they did, they wouldn’t be poor. As a result, their need to protect what little they have is greater than the need of those who have more to protect what they have. This… Read More ›

• THE BOUNTY STORY

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 1, 2020 • ( 1 )

  During the 1980s, the U.S. financed, armed, and trained the Mujahideen in what proved to be their successful campaign to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. In other words, they paid the Mujahideen to kill Soviet soldiers. The Taliban, which… Read More ›

• THE NO PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE MANTRA

  By paulosophicalvimplications on June 30, 2020 • ( 1 )

  I wouldn’t have thought it necessary to weigh in on the civil unrest sweeping across the U.S., and now across the entire western world. I’d have thought it almost analytic that people who are pissed off, and are taking their… Read More ›

• GENDER DYSPHORIA

  By paulosophicalvimplications on June 28, 2020 • ( 3 )

  A few years back the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia published a paper by Rebecca Tuvel in which she wondered, if one can be trans-gendered, why not trans-racial? So one has to either deny one can be trans-gendered, or else deny that… Read More ›

• DOGWHISTLING

  By paulosophicalvimplications on June 25, 2020 • ( 1 )

  If I ask whether the blind date you’re setting me up with is good looking, and you answer that she has a wonderful personality, you’re not just saying something about her personality. Likewise, then, no one denies that all lives… Read More ›

• HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on June 23, 2020 • ( 3 )

  Let me give you a heads up. Whatever you’re most sensitive about, I’m probably going to be insensitive to it. This is regrettable, by which is meant it’s able to be regretted, but apparently not by me. Here I offer just… Read More ›