Ludwig Wittgenstein, arguably the most insightful philosopher of the 20th Century, made the following seemingly paradoxical (but now considered banal) observation. Pretty much everything makes sense until we try to make sense of it. So we’d have been just fine… Read More ›
indigenous
“PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, AND LAW” AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE
My hypocrisy abounds. How so? Because I can no more define wokeism than the woke can define racism or indigenisation or decolonisation or any of the myriad indefinables that make up their vocabulary. What I can do, however, is ostend…. Read More ›
“YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD. I DON’T THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS”
From the Most-Memorable-One-Liners-in-Cinema file, this one’s from The Princess Bride. And here are just some of my favourite words or phrases that don’t mean what either the speaker or the listener thinks they mean: BLACK LIVES MATTER: No one thinks all… Read More ›
ON THE RESEGREGATION MOVEMENT
Truth be told, there’s never not been segregation in Canada of its indigenous population. Even where it’s not legally mandated or enforced, we can see it on the school playground, in the gym, in our public parks, and so on. … Read More ›
INDIGENOUS SCIENCE
Some academics argue that, the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas aside, the indigenous peoples of this hemisphere were at a pre-scientific level of development, and so there’s really no such thing as indigenous science. I think this mischaracterizes the case. … Read More ›
STUPID IDEA # 416
There are some million and a half people in Canada – about 5% of the population – who, in my own lifetime, have been named, renamed, and renamed again, first as Indians, then natives, then First Nations, and now indigenous…. Read More ›
THE OUTCOMES FALLACY
The way to test your argument for validity is what we might call the that’s-like-saying test. You give me your argument, I provide an analogous argument – analogous in the sense of sharing what we call your argument’s argument form… Read More ›
WHO GETS A DEPARTMENT OF THEIR OWN?
I know there are people because I’ve met some. But I’m not sure I’ve ever met a people. A people, I’m told, is a collection of people, but not just any collection of people. It has to be of people… Read More ›
PRIVILEGE AND ACADEMIA
Imagine two colleges side by side with everything being equal, save that one has all and only white faculty and students, the other all and only black faculty and students. Imagine too that there’s some objective measure of student outcomes…. Read More ›
THE OTHER UNDRIP AND INTERSECTIONALITY
Shortly after having passed its Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, the UN ran out of acronyms. So just to avoid confusion, it’s the other UNDRIP that’s the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Invisible People. Women and… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 