Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Reason and Rationality

  • A Van Til Response to my Anti-Presuppositionalism

    This is the third in a new series on presuppositionalism. The first installment is here, and the second here.  I've been re-reading large chunks of Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, P & R Publishing, 2008. This fourth edition, edited by K. Scott Oliphint, includes the complete text of the original 1955 edition…

  • Argumentative Circles and their Diameters: More on Presuppositionalism

    The day before yesterday, re: presuppositionalism, I wrote: We need to bear in mind  that arguments have premises and that no argument can prove its own premises. An argument of the form p therefore p is an argument valid in point of logical form in which premise and conclusion are identical, but no one will take an argument…

  • The Presuppositionalist Challenge to My Position

    The presuppositionalism of Cornelius van Til, Greg L. Bahnsen, John M. Frame and others sets me a challenge given some long-held views of mine. I will here explain one of these views and then explain why it is incompatible with presuppositionalism. After that, I will begin to explain my reasons for rejecting presuppositionalism. This third…

  • Debate, Disagreement, and the Limits of Rational Discourse

    I wrote a few months back, . . . the wisest policy is not to debate leftists. Generally speaking and admitting exceptions, leftists need to be defeated, not debated. Debate is worthwhile only with open-minded truth seekers. Truth, however, is not a leftist value. At the apex of the leftist's value hierarchy stands POWER. That…

  • Retorsion Revisited: How Far Does it Reach and What Does it Prove?

    Retorsion (retortion) is the philosophical procedure whereby one attempts to establish a thesis by uncovering a performative inconsistency in anyone who denies it. It is as old as Aristotle and has been put to use by philosophers as diverse as Transcendental Thomists and Ayn Rand and her followers. Retorsion is something like an ad hominem tu quoque except…

  • W. K. Clifford

    I take a poke at his main claim to fame over at Substack. (What work does 'over' do in the preceding sentence? None at all. But I like the sound of it. So stet.)

  • Genuine Inquiry and Two Forms of Pseudo-Inquiry: Sham Reasoning and Fake Reasoning

    Steven Nemes sent me to his Substack site where he has an article entitled Theology and Philosophy in Roman Catholicism. His way of thinking reminds me of my younger self. What follows is a revised re-posting of an article of mine from September 2014 which explores similar themes. At the end of the re-posting I…

  • Is Reason a White Male Euro-Christian Construct?

    I lay into John D. Caputo in my latest Substack article.

  • The Infirmity of Reason versus the Certitude of Faith

    Reason is infirm in that it cannot establish anything definitively as regards the ultimate questions that most concern us. It cannot even prove that doubting is the way to truth, "that it is certain that we ought to be in doubt." (Pyrrho entry, Bayle's Dictionary, tr. Popkin, p. 205) But, pace Pierre Bayle, the merely subjective certitude…

  • Reason

    Reason calls itself into question but often won't allow a challenge from anything other than reason. But if reason, despite its weakness, has the power to limit its reach and curb its pretensions, then it is strange indeed that it should not allow this power to other sources of insight such as faith, mystical intuition,…

  • Cigarettes, Rationality, and Hitchens

    Substack latest: Let's talk about cigarettes. Suppose you smoke one pack per day. Is that irrational? I hope all will agree that no one who is concerned to be optimally healthy as long as possible should smoke 20 cigarettes a day, let alone 80 like Rod Serling who died at age 50 on the operating…

  • The No True Scotsman or No True Muslim Fallacy

    Substack latest. In logic a fallacy is not a false belief but a pattern of reasoning that is both typical and in some way specious. Specious reasoning, by the very etymology of the term, appears correct but is not. Thus a logical fallacy is not just any old mistake in reasoning, but a typical or recurrent mistake…

  • Doubting the Teachings of One’s Religion

    I argued earlier that besides its salutary role in philosophy, doubt also has a salutary role to play in religion. But I left something out, and Vito Caiati caught it: I have been thinking about your recent post “A Comparison of the Roles of Doubt in Philosophy and Religion” and would like to pose a…

  • A Comparison of the Roles of Doubt in Philosophy and in Religion

    This Sunday morning I preach on James 1:5-8. Of all the epistles, this, the most philosophical, is my favorite. There we read that he who is wanting in wisdom should ask it of God. But one must ask in faith without doubt or hesitation. "For he who hesitates/doubts is like a wave of the sea,…

  • Omnia Sana Sanis

    "All is reasonable to the reasonable." Herein lies a reason to limit one's reasonableness. For it is not reasonable to be reasonable in all things or in relation to all persons. We live among enemies. The enemy needs sometimes to experience the hard fist of unreason, the brute rejection, the blind refusal, the lethal blow.…