Consider all. Test All. Hold on to the good.
Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This [ ]
Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.
Many metaphors have been employed in the epic debate between determinists and indeterminists, compatibilists and incompatibilists, Calvinists and Arminians. Years ago I began conceiving of these two pictures of volition and responsibility as analogous to the difference between a game of foosball and football. If you imagine that the foosmen are conscious, foosball is an [ ]
Thomas Reid argues for the importance of the philosophy of mind, recognizes the obstacles to knowing the mind's inner workings, sketches its history, including Hume and Berkeley. Reid argues against skepticism and for common sense in matters of the mind. "It is a bold philosophy that rejects, without ceremony, principles which irresistibly govern the belief and the conduct of all mankind in the…
He must either be a fool, or want to make a fool of me, that would reason me out of my reason and senses. ... If philosophy contradicts herself, befools her votaries, and deprives them of every object worthy to be pursued or enjoyed, let her be sent back to the infernal regions from which she must have had her original.
At a popular level, AI is the marketing label du jour for virtually every innovation in software, hardware, and technology that is up for sale or open to investment. Though the term is in ubiquitous use with vague semantic content, surely a more technical definition is on hand. Consider the literal definition of artificial: something made [ ]
With the emergence of generative software like Suno to generate music for texts and lyrics, I’ve become taken with songwriting. Ideas for stories and essays that have never seen the light of day have now found expression. Because I tend to obsess over every word, the more limited word count makes songs more attainable; and, [ ]
What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial…
The creator would indeed have been a bungling artist, had he intended man for a social animal, without planting in him social dispositions. It is true they are not planted in every man; because there is no rule without exceptions: but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general rule. Some men are born [ ]
This Jewish and Christian element in our tradition is gratefully invoked by free-loading atheists like myself ... The existence of human rights, in the sense in which it is at issue in this meta-ethical debate, has as much or as little relevance to our treatment of such a child as the question of the existence of God.
Many are anxious about the rise of generative software marketed as "artificial intelligence": software such as ChatGPT for text, Midjourney for images, Sora for video, and Suno for music. Some have raised concerns about a loss of truth and creativity, or about whole categories of gainful employment being decimated. To be sure, we've all seen our feeds populated by deceptive images and videos and…
We ve been living in the lengthening shadow of postmodernism, relativism, subjectivism, and standpoint epistemology since at least the eighties, when I came of age. For the less philosophically inclined, I call it mytruthism . Transgenderism is the apotheosis of this spirit. Today I ran across a new term to add to the litany: cognitive autonomy . In [ ]
John Henry Newman preaches that religious truth cannot simply be passively received; it must be actively pursued and sincerely desired or it will remain obscure and inaccessible. He emphasizes that truth is complex, dispersed across history, and requires persistent effort, humility, and the willingness to change one’s life and habits to apprehend it. Newman also warns that without such seeking,…
Some things are this, and others are that. Some things are not like the others. We learn this. We know this. We depend upon our ability to discriminate between this and that. In a chaotic world, all is undefined and undifferentiated. Skeptics, subjectivists, and other agents of chaos are wont to undo that fundamental childhood [ ]
Professor Henry F. (Fritz) Schaefer is one of the most distinguised physical scientists in the world. The U.S. News and World Report cover story of December 23, 1991 speculated that Professor Schaefer is a five time nominee for the Nobel Prize. He has received five of the most prestigious awards of the American Chemical Society, [ ]
The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of…
Bryan was very skilled in the use of the English language. Even on the cold pages of print over a quarter of a century later the pathos, humor, and sparkle of Bryan are not lost. For example, as Bryan would tell the story of the decline and fall of Darwin from grace it took on the pathos of a Greek tragedy. It was the story of the devout young Christian who had implicit faith in the infallibility…
In the face of a huge loss of faith in our leaders, Michael W. Austin and Gregory L. Bock recruited a couple dozen evangelical professors to exhort naysayers in the pews to steer clear of "conspiracy theories" and dissenting opinions. Apart from a lot of generic epistemological and conversational advice, QAnon, Chaos, and the Cross manages to learn and teach the wrong lesson from the early…
The vulnerability of birthright citizenship lies in the same thing that allows the U.S. Constitution to live and breathe and stay relevant to a changing world: textual economy. Along with the rest of the Constitution and its amendments, the 14th was deliberate with its sparse language and a lack of examples or contextual framing, in [ ]
The study of ethics is primarily associated with questions of morality: “good” and “bad,” “right” and “wrong.” The field of metaethics asks about what we mean by terms like “good” or “right,” and whether they represent real features of the world. In Metaethics: A Short Companion, David A. Horner and J. P. Moreland provide a primer [ ]
You may have heard the claim that the Bible, when read correctly, is not against believers entering monogamous, faithful same-sex relationships. The arguments sound quite compelling.” Jesus never talked about same-sex relationships.” “Paul was only condemning exploitative relationships, not consensual ones. “We don’t keep the Old Testament food laws, so why would we keep the [ ]
Gay marriage does not simply involve a minor expansion of the traditional concept. There was a time when gay writers such as Andrew Sullivan argued that allowing same-sex marriages would simply permit gay people to be part of a conservative institution. It is now clear that gay marriage did not merely expand the set of [ ]
To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most [ ]
Since 1968, the LGBT movement has made significant inroads into the Christian church. The affirming church movement has become mainstream through the erosion of mainline denominations. Queer theology has taken hold in many academic settings. The emergence of gay celibate theology is causing confusion in evangelical churches through its appeal to modern psychology and LGBT-lived [ ]
Rep. Stansbury asked what Twitter has done and is doing to combat hate speech on its platform. Navaroli correctly declined to address current policies since she has not been at the company for some time. However, she then said that they balanced free speech against safety and explained that they sought a different approach: Instead [ ]
Christian faith is essentially thinking. Look at the birds, think about them, and draw your deductions. Look at the grass, look at the lilies of the field, consider them. ... Faith, if you like, can be defined like this: It is a man insisting upon thinking when everything seems determined to bludgeon and knock him down in an intellectual sense. The trouble with the person of little faith is that,…
The reason I wrote the book is not to settle old scores or give my version of the match, but to say that we should not be paralyzed by a dystopian vision of the future – worrying about killer AI and super-intelligent robots, which is like worrying about overcrowding on Mars.
When strong evidence for a specific and falsifiable claim is presented, the response is a barrage of article and paper recommendations on larger and related questions instead of conceding the point of contention. It may be considered a type of slothful induction.
There's just gotta be a place up ahead Where men aren't lodown and poker's played fair If there weren't, what are all the songs about I'll see y'all there And we can sing together and shake our heads About all the meannes in the used to be
The Twitter Files have revealed or confirmed three important truths about social media and the deep state. First, the entire concept of “content moderation” is a euphemism for censorship by social media companies that falsely claim to be neutral and unbiased. To the extent they exercise a virtual monopoly on public discourse in the digital era, [ ]