If something is permitted, it means that you are allowed to do it. If something is not permitted, it means that you are not. If swimming in the community pool is permitted only on the weekends, it means that if you show up on a weekend, you will be allowed into the...
Daniel Kaufman and Robert Talisse on Sustaining Democracy, 9/19/2021. https://youtu.be/jkmKb4MJUe4
That the personal is political is a bit of wisdom from the 1960’s, which suggests that we should not ignore domestic affairs in the political arena. That the personal is philosophical is an idea that goes back to Antiquity and to Socrates, who is reported by Plato to...
Brian Leiter recently invited people to suggest “philosophical things that everyone should know.” I answered with ten things, which you can see in the comments on the original post. What philosophical ideas should non-philosophers know about? But then I started...
[1] You are talking with a friend who is a bit too taken with superhero comics. Halfway into an enthusiastic speech regarding the virtues of Captain America, you say to him gently, “You do realize that Captain America doesn’t exist, right?” What effect is this...
My interest here is in the way that Standpoint Epistemology (SE hereafter) is deployed in contemporary moral and political discourse. I am not interested in hypothetical, abstract, idealized treatments of the subject. The effort to develop an idealized form of SE...
Thomas Szasz is an enigma. He is a trained psychiatrist who spent decades railing against psychiatry. He said that mental illness is a myth, compared involuntary psychiatric treatment to slavery, and made a case that all drugs – including psychiatric ones – should be...
You may ask: What does an old white man like me know about girls and women in philosophy? Well, I used to (and still do) teach them. The issue I want to discuss is the underrepresentation of women in getting a PhD or a tenure track position in philosophy. In arts and...
There’s always a little light-hearted ribbing around the office or among friends over March Madness betting pools. But basketball-related disputes are sometimes more enduring. Statisticians and researchers have been passionately divided for decades over the mere issue...
Philosophers sacralize moral obligation and maintain that moral considerations are always overriding of all others, but ordinary people [as well as philosophers in their ordinary lives] hold actions done from earnest desire in higher esteem than those done from duty....
[1] You are with a friend in a restaurant, and he tells you that you ought not (in the moral sense) order the linguine con vongole that you are considering. When you ask him why, he tells you that eating clams violates their interests. You reply that you don’t care...
https://youtu.be/MlPnezRPCt8 Transcript Stasis; change. Rest; motion. Solid; liquid. These are all contrasting metaphors where one side – stasis, rest, solid – refer to a constant, and the other – change, motion, liquid – refer to movement. Each needs the other. If...
John Xu and me with our vintage wood racquets For the last three years or so, my tennis partner (John Xu) and I have been playing with wood racquets: he with a vintage Jack Kramer; I with a vintage Chris Evert Autograph. Towards the end of 2022, John became aware that...
A few weeks ago, I cleaned out my office at Missouri State University, in Springfield, where I’ve been a professor since 1999. I retired this Fall, following my wife, Nancy, who in the Spring finished fifteen years of teaching high school. It’s been three years since...
Originally, these prolegomena were published in separate installments, over a period of months. I have since edited and consolidated them into a single statement that represents the most complete summary of my current philosophical views. [1] Initial...
The comedian Paul F. Tompkins once said that we live in a golden age of cowardice. What he meant was that the Internet allows for more people than ever before to anonymously throw brickbats at strangers. Along similar lines, I wonder if we’re about to enter an age of...
Like all parents of young children today, I’ve sat through more episodes of Paw Patrol (and similar children’s programming) than I’d like. But as a philosopher, it gives me an interesting insight into how we as a culture use stories as a way to gradually bring our...