Let’s start with a little Hohfeldian housekeeping. Arguably there’s no such thing as a duty to defend oneself from injury. But no one, save the most bone-headed pacifist, would deny one has a right to defend himself, to defend himself… Read More ›
Anti-Semitism
OF CRIMES BY ASSOCIATION WITH CRIMES
Definitive of the Millian liberalism to which most of us purport to subscribe is the view that a) all is permitted save what is prohibited, and that b) a necessary, albeit insufficient, condition of some behavior being justifiably prohibited is… Read More ›
DON QUIXOTE’S BLESSING
Why is it that some truths have to be learned over and over and over again? I suppose it’s because they’re just too hard to believe. I learned about fifteen years ago that many of the people I work with… Read More ›
THE HAIDT HYPOTHESIS
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has argued, quite convincingly, that a university can dedicate itself to the search for truth, or to the promotion of social justice, but not both. Truth and justice are seldom about the same thing. But when… Read More ›
THE TONY HALL CASE REVISITED
I made a stab at this in my blog in an earlier post entitled “Holocaust Denial and Anti-Semitism”. Since that post, an internal investigation of an internal complaint against Tony Hall has exonerated him, and the Administration’s complaint against him… Read More ›
HOLOCAUST DENIAL AND ANTI-SEMITISM
Down the hall and around two corners, I have a colleague named Tony Hall. I say ‘colleague’, but only in the sense that we’re both tenured professors at the same university. I teach in the Philosophy Department; he’s a one-man… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 