Category: Distinctions
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The Difference between Posing and Begging a Question
I found the nifty graphic below over at Flood's place. It is a pithy and pictorial presentation of a point I have been hammering away at online for the last twenty years. Here is a Substack hammer-job. Some say we should give up the fight and let the forces of linguistic decadence obliterate the distinction…
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Lee’s Lunar Lunacy
Another example of a dumb-as-dirt Dem. No Sheila dear, the Moon is not a planet, but a natural satellite of the Earth, the only one in fact. Its singularity is why, in correct orthography, we write 'the Moon' and not 'the moon.' Jupiter has a number of moons, whereas the Earth has exactly one. Our…
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Amendments or Addenda?
The Bill of Rights. Amendments or additions? A reasonable question and a good distinction. Addenda. I owe the point and the distinction to James Soriano. It's obvious when you think about it, but the question hadn't occurred to me. And always give credit where credit us due, else you'll end up like the Big Guy,…
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No Labels? Label We Must!
"Not Right. Not Left. Forward." There are are real differences between Right and Left that cannot be ignored. The positions must be carefully defined and appropriately labeled. 'No labels' is itself a label, an inept one. Label we must. We ought to do it carefully and thoughtfully. The world is a plural world shot through…
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Peter Geach on the Real Distinction I
Oceans of ink have been spilled over the centuries on the celebrated distinctio realis between essence (essentia) and existence (esse). You have no idea how much ink, and vitriol too, has flooded the scholastic backwaters and sometimes spilled over into mainstream precincts. Anyway, the distinction has long fascinated me and I hold to some version of it. I will first…
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On Hairsplitting
Substack latest. The charge is brought by anti-intellectuals, too many of them conservatives.
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Truth and Accuracy
Their difference explained at Substack.
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Masculinity
Out and about yesterday, I caught a bit of Dennis Prager's radio show. He defended Daniel Penny's behavior in his confrontation with Jordan Neely as masculine, using the word correctly. In our infantilized, feminized, and left-dominated and therefore crime-tolerant society, Penny's behavior will be called toxically masculine by our political enemies. But to anyone who…
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Consensus and Truth
Consensus is no guarantee of truth. If all or most of the experts in some subject area agree that p, it does not follow that p is true. But that is not to say, or imply, that consensus has no bearing on truth. A consensus of unbiased and uncoerced experts in a field is a…
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Buckner Clarifies his Terminology
Terminological fluidity is one of the banes of philosophy. What follows is an admirable exercise in terminological fixation by the Worthy Opponent. My comments are in blue. I have been discussing toothbrushes [mirror images] with David but it’s clear we are being held back by semantics. I am not clear what we respectively mean by…
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Three Senses of ‘Peace’
There is the divine peace that "surpasseth all understanding." (Philippians 4:7) It is the most difficult to achieve. There is peace among people who love, or at least tolerate, one another. It is moderately difficult to achieve. There is finally the peace most easily achieved, that based on deterrence and mutual fear. (Our enemies do…
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Accidental or Negligent?
An important distinction: . . . an accidental discharge is when lightning strikes your firearm in such a way as to cause it to fire. Just about anything else is a negligent discharge. Any unintentional discharge of a firearm can usually be traced to negligence on some individual’s part. Not knowing the proper manual of…