Analysis of Historical and Scientific Claims about the Shroud of Turin
Review historical evidence regarding the origin and provenance of the Shroud of Turin.
Arcane Knowledge
Essays and source texts on obscure topics in history, philosophy, theology and science.
Latest posts
Judicial Activism and Natural Law Jurisprudence - Part V
Pre-Lochner and Lochner era cases, focusing on economic issues.
Mathematical Resolution of the St. Petersburg Paradox
Paradoxes in probability theory related to the St. Petersburg lottery problem.
Judicial Activism and Natural Law Jurisprudence - Part III
Civil War Amendments and early post-war judicial review.
Plato and the Good: Part I
Plato's notion of the absolute Good, beginning with the motivation of his Ideas (Parmenides) and the Idea of Happiness (Philebus).
Basic Issues in Natural Philosophy: Part VII
Continuity and movement; modern mathematics and continuity; coming to rest; finite and infinite distance and time.
Judicial Activism and Natural Law Jurisprudence - Part II
Exercise of judicial review from the Founding to the Civil War.
Plato's Parmenides: An Exercise in Antinomic Dialectic
Explaining and resolving paradoxes in Plato's Parmenides dialogue, in defense of doctrine of Forms.
The Incompleteness of Formal Logic: Part IV
Boole's calculus of logic and probability theory.
Objective Measures of Human Inequality - Parts I-II
Objective measures of inter-individual and inter-group variability of human physiological and psychological traits. Introduction to statistical concepts.
Locality and Determinism under Bell Tests and Delayed Choice Experiments - Part IV
Implications of Bell's inequality violations; Wheeler's delayed choice experiments; 't Hooft's challenge to the free choice assumption; free will and the Big Bell Test.
The Priority of St. Matthew's Gospel - Part VII
Conclusion summarizing argument in favor of Matthaean priority and probable mode of composition.
The Priority of St. Matthew's Gospel - Part VI
Comparison of semantic content and sequence of Matthew and Mark, in view of competing hypotheses of priority.
Number of Humans in Space (1961-Present)
Updated charts.
Locality and Determinism under Bell Tests and Delayed Choice Experiments - Part III
Review of David Bohm's treatment of EPR paradox and J.S. Bell's original 1964 theorem.
Boxing Championship Lineages
Updated lineages through 6 Sep 2019.
Capital Punishment as Self Defense in Catholic Ethics
Reviews development of Catholic teaching on capital punishment in light of human dignity and the duty of charity.
Origen and Origenism - Part IV
Examines which Origenist doctrines can be found in Origen's Peri Archon.
Locality and Determinism under Bell Tests and Delayed Choice Experiments - Part II
Philosophical concepts relevant to EPR paradox; Bohr's response with "complementarity"; Einstein's "separation principle."
Locality and Determinism under Bell Tests and Delayed Choice Experiments - Part I
Introduction to entangled states for non-physicists, followed by discussion of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument against completeness of quantum mechanical theory.
Obsessing over Infallibility
Critiques the abuse of criteria of infallibility to circumscribe the authority of the living Magisterium.
Number of Humans in Space (1961-Present)
Updated charts.
Boxing Championship Lineages
Updated lineages.
The Incompleteness of Formal Logic: Part III
Philosophical discussion of classical term logic, including predication and syllogisms.
Historiography of the Apparition of Guadalupe: Part XIII
Revision to section titled "Retouches to the Face" in light of new evidence presented by Franyutti (2015).
andunder Originalist Principles
Style updates and revised intro to re-titled essay on segregation cases under originalist analysis.
On the Reality of Temporal Succession
Past, present and future in light of relativity. In two parts.
Basic Issues in Natural Philosophy: Part VI
Opposition to movement and rest; natural and violent motion, acceleration and rotation; simple motion.
Basic Issues in Natural Philosophy: Part V
Types of physical movement: accidental and essential, direct and indirect; factors in movement; ontological categories of movement; species and unity of movements; regular and irregular motion.
U.S. Political Representation by Party
Updated table with 2017 representation.
Reconciling Hesychasm and Scholasticism in the Triads of Gregory Palamas - Part II
Ontological reality of divine attributes, theophanic energies; hesychast body-soul mysticism, prayer in the heart, physical techniques.
Boxing Championship Lineages
Updated lineages.
Nietzsche's Challenge to the Idea of Moral Good - Part X
Conclusion: valuation by will to power; ressentiment and bad conscience; critique of egalitarianism; the Superman; ascetic ideal; will to truth; Dionysian impulse; failure to transvaluate; racialism; Dionysian Christianity.
The Real Emily Rose: Fact and Fiction about Anneliese Michel
Review of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and case history of Anneliese Michel.
Nietzsche's Challenge to the Idea of Moral Good - Part IX
Will to truth; eternal recurrence; Dionysus.
Nietzsche's Challenge to the Idea of Moral Good - Part VIII
Against moral idealism; utility and happiness; asceticism.
Nietzsche's Challenge to the Idea of Moral Good - Part VII
Modern herd morality; the Superman.
Boxing Championship Lineages
Updated lineages; added super bantamweight.
Nietzsche's Challenge to the Idea of Moral Good - Part VI
Origin of good and evil; guilt, bad conscience and punishment.
Reconciling Hesychasm and Scholasticism in the Triads of Gregory Palamas
Compares essence-energies theology of Greek Orthodox hesychasm with Latin Scholastic concepts.
The Origins of Original Sin - Part VII
Medieval and modern doctrines on original sin and the limbo of infants.
The Origins of Original Sin - Part VI
Juridical issues in Augustinian doctrine on original sin.
The Priority of St. Matthew's Gospel - Part V
Examination of Marcan redactional syntax, compared with usage in Matthew.
Basic Issues in Natural Philosophy - Part IV
Relativistic Spacetime
The Origins of Original Sin - Part V
Role of concupiscence in Augustininan doctrine on original sin.
Boxing Championship Lineages
Updated featherweight to heavyweight lineages.
Commentary on Council of Ephesus
Corrected an error and updated code.
Basic Issues in Natural Philosophy - Part III
Place or Space; the Void; Time.
U.S. Political Representation by Party
Updated table; corrected Supreme Court justices.
Nietzsche's Challenge to the Idea of Moral Good - Part V
Master morality and slave morality.