Category: Autobiographical
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A Red-Diaper Baby I Once Knew: Anecdotes Illustrating Leftist Illusions
In graduate school I was friends for a time with a New York Jew who for the purposes of this memoir I will refer to as 'Saul Peckstein.' A red diaper baby, he was brought up on Communism the way I was brought up on Roman Catholicism. Invited up to his room one day, I…
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The Differences Between Me and You
I'm sensitive, you're touchy. I'm firm, you are pigheaded. Frugality in me is cheapness in you. I am open-minded, you are empty-headed. I am careful, you are obsessive. I am courageous while you are as reckless as a Kennedy. I am polite but you are obsequious. My speech is soothing, yours is unctuous. I am…
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My One Claim to Chess Fame: The ‘Famous’ Vallicella Trap in the Caro-Kann
What follows are two posts written by Dennis Monokroussos from his first-rate chess weblog, The Chess Mind. For purposes of comparison, here are the United States Chess Federation ratings of four, actually five, chess playing philosopher friends. For detailed stats click on the names. Dennis Monokroussos: 2385. Timothy McGrew: 2196. Victor Reppert: 1912. Ed…
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The Dignity of Labor and Marxist Utopianism
This old man busted his hump for a solid three hours this morning shoveling a ton and a half of 3/4" Madison gold landscaping rock onto his property. I paid $91 for the rock and $45 to have it delivered. Here in the Sonoran desert water-wasting lawns are frowned upon; xeriscapes are de rigueur. The…
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Two Recent Publications of Mine
"Van Inwagen on Fiction, Existence, Properties, Particulars, and Method," Studia Neoaristotelica: A Journal of Analytical Scholasticism, vol, 12, no. 2 (2015), pp. 99-125. This is a long review article on Peter van Inwagen's Existence: Essays in Ontology, Cambridge University Press, 2014. "Facts: An Essay in Aporetics" in Francesco F. Calemi, ed., Metaphysics and Scientific Realism:…
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Bad Teachers and Lousy Colleagues: The Upside
If I had had outstanding teachers, perhaps I would not have been able to gain and sustain the self-confidence that saw me through. And if not for lousy colleagues I might not have been hired when I was pretty lousy too.
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Maverick Philosopher III Passes 3.5 Million Mark
This, the third main incarnation of MavPhil, commenced operations on Halloween, 2008. Since then it has racked up 3,501,215 page views. Daily average: 1,321.21. Total posts: 6,357. Total comments: 8,775. Here are the entries for 31 October 2008. Will I ever hang up the keyboard? I've been at this, almost daily, since May of…
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I Didn’t Start Out Conservative
Like many conservatives, I didn't start out as one. My background is working class, my parents were Democrats, and so was I until the age of 41. I came of age in the '60s. One of my heroes was John F. Kennedy, "the intrepid skipper of the PT 109" as I described him in a…
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Van Inwagen on Fiction, Existence, Properties, Particulars, and Method
My latest publication. Here is a pre-print version.
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Biola University, Spring 2014
David Rodriquez sent me the following shot of some participants in an event at Biola University in the spring of 2014. Ed Feser read a paper and I commented on it. I am the guy in the dark glasses with his arm around Ed Feser. The tallest man is David Limbaugh To my right is…
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The Halloween Dance
Wife will go, I won't. She goes every year, I beg off every year. Angel that she is, she doesn't begrudge me my nonattendance. I'd rather think and trance than drink and dance. Why? Well, we know that drinking and dancing won't get us anywhere. But it is at least possible that thinking and trancing will.
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Boston, a Great Town to be Young in, but . . .
Fond are the memories of my years in Boston as a graduate student in the mid-70s, '73-'78 to be exact, with a year off to study in Freiburg im Breisgau of Husserl and Heidegger fame. Even after securing a tenure-track post in the Midwest in '78 I would return to Boston in the summers, '79-'81.…
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Harley-Davidson: Stickin’ It to the Man
Check out this H-D promotional video. A celebration of individuality by people who dress the same, ride the same make of motorcycle, and chant in unison. "Some of us believe in the Man Upstairs, but all of us believe in stickin' it to the Man Down Here." But without the Man Down Here there would be…
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Young Man’s Bible, Old Man’s Bible
When he was a young man he travelled around the country with On the Road, the 'Bible of the Beat Generation,' in his rucksack, just as Kerouac had with Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible in his. Now the young man is old. Now when he travels he carries a different light paperback, the plain old…
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BEATific October Again
And no better way to kick off Kerouac month than with 'sweet gone Jack' reading from "October in Railroad Earth" from Lonesome Traveler, 1960. Steve Allen provides the wonderful piano accompaniment. I have the Grove Press Black Cat 1970 paperback edition. Bought it on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, 12 April 1973. I was travelling…