Category: Uncategorized

Bill Keezer writes, I had a cat once like which there will never be another. He supposedly was my wife’s cat. He decided I was his human. He considered it his divine right to walk up in my lap when I was studying statistical mechanics and lie down on the book. I would walk up…

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous writes: I was reading your recent post on profiling and it moved me to share with you a point I've shared with others many times.  I worked a long time ago in insurance, and profiling in insurance is not only commonplace it is necessary and accepted by the…

For me, it doesn't get any better than the late piano sonatas of Beethoven, especially Op. 109, 110, 111. This is music preeminent and unsurpassable, though some of Brahms comes close. Here is Claudio Arrau performing the First Movement of Sonata 32, Opus 111. And here is Daniel Barenboim playing the 2nd movement.  If this…

Opening paragraph: We don't often defend the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but Attorney General Eric Holder can inspire strange alliances. Recently, the Justice Department asked the full circuit to overturn the unanimous and enlightened decision of a three-judge panel allowing bone marrow donors to be compensated for their donations. Why not allow compensation? .…

A young man who was brought up Mormon, retains much if not all of the salutary character formation, but is now an atheist, writes (emphasis added): I've been thinking about some of our conversations about theology and epistemology. Particularly the stuff on Mormonism. I'm sitting in on [Professor X's] medieval philosophy class reading St. Anselm among…

Both passed on this last week Otis at 90, James at 73.  Johnny Otis' signature number is of course "Willy and the Hand Jive."  In this curious clip, we are first treated to a late '50 car commercial which should stir up memories in Los Angelenos of a certain age and then to a performance …

One of the elements in my personal liturgy is a reading of the following passage every January 1st. I must have begun the practice in the mid-70s.  Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book Four, #276, tr. Kaufmann: For the new year. — I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I…

'Tis the season for the letter carriers of the world to groan under their useless burdens of impersonal greetings. Impersonality in the minimalist style may take the form of a store-bought card with a pre-fabricated message to which is appended an embossed name. A step up from this is a handwritten name. Slightly better still…

Having just mentioned naturalism and scientism  in my plug for Plantinga's new book, you may be wondering what naturalism is and how it is related to scientism.   J. P. Moreland gives a full answer in his book The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism (SCM Press, 2009).  What follows is my…

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Consider the sentences 'Caissa is a cat' and 'Every cat is an animal.'  Edward the Nominalist made two  claims in an earlier comment thread that stuck in my Fregean craw: 1. The relation between 'Caissa' and 'cat' is the same as the relation between 'cat' and 'animal'. 2. The relation between *Caissa* and *cat* is…

We have been discussing the topic of nonqualitative thisness here, here,  and here.  The following post gets at the problem from another angle, the love angle. Here is a remarkable passage from Pascal's remarkable Pensees: A man goes to the window to see the passers by. If I happen to pass by, can I say…

Commenting on an earlier post of mine, Peter Lupu brought up some themes from David Kaplan which were not quite relevant but interesting nonetheless.   In my response I pointed out that Kaplan is committed to Russellian (R) as opposed to Fregean (F) propositions whereas the problem I had posed presupposes that propositions are Fregean.  In…

Kerouac reads the 239th, 240th and 241st choruses of Mexico City Blues against the backdrop of Steve Allen's piano.  "Charley Parker, lay the bane, off  me, and every body."

1. A contingent being is one the nonexistence of which is possible, whereas a necessary being is one the nonexistence of which is impossible. (At play in these definitions is broadly logical possibility which is between narrowly logical and nomological possibility.) 2. Framing a definition is one thing, showing that something answers to it is…