Category: Uncategorized
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Lawrence Auster on Dylan
I was surprised, but pleased, to see that the late Lawrence Auster, traditionalist conservative, photo to the left, 1973, had a deep appreciation and a wide-ranging knowledge of Dylan's art. Born in 1949, Auster is generationally situated for that appreciation, and as late as '73 was still flying the '60s colors, if we can go by…
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A Question about Donald Trump
This from a reader: It would be very interesting to hear your take on Trump — why do you think that his leadership of the country, despite obvious personality flaws, is less risky for the US and the world than a reasonable alternative? Yes, the ideological, thoughtless, and totalitarian far-left is dangerous, but isn't unprincipled,…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Tunes of the Season
Merry Christmas everybody. Pour yourself a drink, and enjoy. Me, I'm nursing a Boulevardier. It's a Negroni with cojones: swap out the gin for bourbon. One ounce bourbon, one ounce sweet vermouth, one ounce Campari, straight up or on the rocks, with a twist of orange. A serious libation. It'll melt a snowflake for sure. The vermouth rosso contests…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Recently Dead and Gone
As a sort of intro, The Who, My Generation. "I hope I die before I get old." My English readers will enjoy the video. Charlie Watts at 80, 1941-2021. Rolling Stones, Sittin' on a Fence. A lovely tune. Trigger warning! Under My Thumb. Eerily appropriate these days: Gimme Shelter Don Everly at 84, 1937-2021. When…
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Back to the Intentionality/Reference Discussion
Returning to the ongoing thread: So to summarise the discussion so far. The doctrine of Reference and Identity is that empty names can refer. That is because the verb phrase ‘refers to’ is intentional. That is, “S refers to N” is consistent with “there is no such thing as N”. Contrast with “S touches N” which implies there…
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‘Equity’
'Equity' as currently used refers to equality of outcome. It could be achieved in a footrace by attaching weights to runners so as to insure that they all cross the finish line at the same time. One would thereby purchase the benefit of envy-free equality of result at the cost of excellence and high achievement.…
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Ratzinger on the Resurrection of the Body
For Cyrus "I believe in . . . the resurrection of the body and life everlasting." Thus ends the Apostles' Creed. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) addresses the meaning of this article of faith on pp. 347-359 of his Introduction to Christianity (Ignatius Press, 2004). The book first appeared in German in 1968 long…
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The Atheist
A Substack rumination over a Brunton observation.
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E. J. Lowe on Existence and Substantial Change: Critical Remarks
We have seen that and how Lowe reduces property change to existential change. The latter is the change that occurs when something comes into existence and passes out of existence. What of the reverse reduction, the reduction of existential change to property change? What are its prospects? Could we say that when an individual substance…
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Does Your Disagreement Give Me Good Reason to Question My Position?
In general, no. For you may be foolish or ignorant or otherwise incompetent with respect to the subject matter under discussion. Or you may be morally defective: a bully, a blowhard, a bullshitter, a quibbler, a sophist. But suppose none of these predicates attach to you. Suppose you are my moral and intellectual peer, and…
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The Temporal, the Atemporal, and the Tenseless
1) Divide all entities into two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive classes, the temporal and the atemporal. Temporal entities are 'in time,' while atemporal entities are not 'in time.' Caesar's crossing the Rubicon is in time; 7's being prime is not in time. 2) Here are some temporal words: past, present, future, before, after, later,…
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25 Words that are their Own Opposites
Here
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Politics as Polemics: The Converse Clausewitz Principle
Would that I could avoid this political stuff. But I cannot in good conscience retreat into my inner citadel and let my country be destroyed — the country that makes it possible for me to cultivate the garden of solitude, retreat into my inner citadel, and pursue pure theory for its own sake. Political discourse…
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Two Senses of ‘Tenseless’
The first sense I mention only to set aside. Timeless entities, if there are any, exist tenselessly and have their intrinsic properties and some of their relational properties tenselessly. The 'exists' in '7 exists' is tenseless, and so is the 'is' in '7 is prime.' And please note that the tenselessness is not a result…
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