Category: Life of the Mind
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Alan Dershowitz, Thomas Nagel, and David Benatar
What do these three have in common besides uncommon intellectual penetration and the courage to speak and write publicly on controversial topics? Each has been viciously attacked by ideologues. Dershowitz and Nagel have been attacked from the Left and Benatar from the Right and the Left. It is all over for the West if we…
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On the Road with Peter Wust
Both Pyrrhonists and dogmatists aim at and achieve a sort of psychological security: the former by ceasing to inquire and by living more or less adoxastos, without beliefs; the latter by the rigid and unquestioning holding of contentious beliefs. The dogmatists hold on, the skeptics let go. The former live tenaciously, clinging to their tenets;…
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Why Be Consistent? Three Types of Consistency
A reader inquires: This idea of the necessity to be consistent seems to be the logician's "absolute," as though being inconsistent was the most painful accusation one could endure. [. . .] What rule of life says that one must be absolutely consistent in how one evaluates truth? It is good to argue from first…
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Why is Friendship So Fragile Among Intellectuals?
A certain commie and I were were friends for a time in graduate school, but friendship is fragile among those for whom ideas matter. Unlike the ordinary non-intellectual person, the intellectual lives for and sometimes from ideas. They are his oxygen and sometimes his bread and butter. He takes them very seriously indeed and with them differences in ideas. So the…
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Once More on the Bogus Aristotle ‘Quotation’
The indefatigable Dave Lull delivers again. But first Uncle Bill's lessons for the day: 1) Be skeptical of all unsourced quotations. 2) Do not broadcast unsourced quotations unless you are sure they are correct. 3) Verify the sources of sourced quotations. 4) Correct, if you can, incorrect 'quotations.' 5) Do not willfully mis-attribute! Or, like…
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“No Man is a Hypocrite in His Pleasures”
Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959, tr. Ryan Bloom, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2010, p. 95: Johnson: "No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures." The Johnson in question is Samuel Johnson. Translator Bloom informs us that James Boswell's Vie de Samuel Johnson (Life of Samuel Johnson) was published in France in 1954. So it looks as…
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The Pyrrhonian as Epistemic Wimp
What is so bad about the strife of systems, controversy, conflict of beliefs? Are they always bad, never productive? Is it not by abrasion (of beliefs) that the pearl (of wisdom) is formed? At least sometimes? Doxastic conflict can be mentally stimulating, a goad to intellectual activity. We like being active. It makes us happy.…
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Reading Now: When Reason Goes on Holiday (Encounter, 2016)
Neven Sesardić is a Croatian philosopher, born in 1949. He has taught philosophy at universities in Croatia, the United States, Japan, England, and Hong Kong. An earlier book of his is Making Sense of Heritability (Cambridge U. P., 2005). “Gripping, thoroughly researched and documented, judiciously argued, and alternately depressing and infuriating, Sesardić’s courageous book offers the astounding…
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Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?
An important essay by Robert Nozik. (HT: C. Cathcart) Teaser quotation: Intellectuals now expect to be the most highly valued people in a society, those with the most prestige and power, those with the greatest rewards. Intellectuals feel entitled to this. But, by and large, a capitalist society does not honor its intellectuals. Ludwig von…
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A Bias of the Intellectual
Robert Paul Wolff: A rich, complex vocabulary properly deployed is one evidence of a strong mind endowed with a wealth of knowledge. As I was watching portions of Trump’s press conference yesterday, despite being made physically ill by the man, I somewhat reflexively noticed the extraordinary paucity of his linguistic resources. Even when he is…
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Among the Joys of Philosophy
One of the joys of philosophy is purely aesthetic in Kierkegaard's sense: the joy of exploring the highways and byways, the twists and turns of human thought. Included in this are the pleasures of books and quiet and warm lamp light early in the morning and late at night. Related articles Kierkegaard: "To Hell…
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Why Keep a Journal?
It was 46 years ago yesterday that I first began keeping a regular journal under the motto, nulla dies sine linea. Before that, as a teenager, I kept some irregular journals. Why maintain a journal? When I was 16 years old, my thought was that I didn't want time to pass with nothing to show for it. That…
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Passion and Cogency
Passionate presentation does not add to the cogency of one's arguments. But neither does it detract. One's audience, however, will likely mistake the presence of passion for the absence of reason. So the best policy in most circumstances is to present one's arguments in an emotionally neutral way. Or at least that used to be…