Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Commitment, Doxastic and Existential

  • The Existential versus the Merely Theoretical: Some Responses to a Reader

    A young Brazilian reader, Vini, refers to an article of mine, Retorsion Revisited: How Far Does it Reach and What Does it Prove? and asks me some questions about it. He is clearly one of those whose interest in philosophy is deeply existential and not merely theoretical or academic.  ‘Existential’ has several meanings both inside…

  • Marital Vows

    The more seriously you take them, the more careful you will be in the selection of a spouse.

  • Ronald Radosh on David Horowitz: A Critical Appreciation

    On very rare occasions, something surfaces at The Bulwark worth reading. Radosh, who is well worth reading, gives his take on Horowitz's flipping of his ideological script, and takes him to task for his late extremism. But how is this judgment by Radosh not itself extreme: What David is being celebrated for is the opposite…

  • The Ambiguity of Vows

    Vows make for stability of life and put a brake on the mercurial and fickle in us. They must be taken seriously or not taken at all. But rigid commitments immaturely or prematurely entered into  are sometimes better broken than kept. Sometimes, not often. Rigidity and flexibility, both physical and psychological, are values, competing values.…