My name is William F. Vallicella, I have the doctorate in philosophy (Boston College, 1978), and I have published a couple of books and 70 or so articles in the professional journals. A confirmed blogger in the grip of cacoethes scribendi<\/em>, I’ve been online since May 2004 on various platforms.\u00a0 This is MavPhil<\/em> Gen IV.\u00a0 I publish online here, at Substack, on Facebook, and at X. <\/em>\u00a0I began posting at Substack<\/a> in early 2021 under the rubric “Philosophy in Progress.” The Substack<\/em> entries are intended to assist educated non-philosophers in clarifying their thinking about matters of moment.\u00a0 My PhilPeople page<\/a> links to my Substack<\/em> articles and provides a list of my professional publications.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Two-line biography<\/em>:\u00a0 I taught philosophy at various universities in the USA and abroad. At the relatively young age of 41 I resigned from\u00a0 a tenured position to live the eremitic life of the independent philosopher in the Sonoran desert.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Interests<\/em>: Everything.\u00a0Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto.<\/em> (Terentius) “I am a man: I consider nothing human foreign to me.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Motto<\/em>: “Study everything, join nothing.” (Paul Brunton)<\/span><\/p>\n Comment Policy<\/em>: This site is not a discussion board.\u00a0 Comments must address directly what the author says or what the commenters say.\u00a0 Other comments will not be allowed to appear. Comments should be pithy and to the point. In these hyperkinetic times, the regnant abbreviation is TL;DR.\u00a0 If you are a cyberpunk needing to take a data dump, please relieve yourself elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n My politics?<\/em>\u00a0 From Democrat to Dissident<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Political Burden of Proof<\/em>: As contemporary ‘liberals’ become ever more extreme, they increasingly assume what I will call the political burden of proof. The onus is now on them to defeat the presumption that they are so morally and intellectually obtuse as not to be worth talking to.<\/span><\/p>\n Much more below the fold. Best wishes to all men and women of good will who love truth, seek it, and strive to incorporate it in their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Welcome to the third and latest incarnation of\u00a0Maverick Philosopher.<\/em>\u00a0 I began this weblog in May of 2004 and have kept it up continuously on different servers, missing only a few days. I’m in this game ‘for the duration,’ as long as health and eyesight hold out. \u00a0It has proven to be deeply satisfying, not the least reason for which being that my writing has attracted a large number of like-minded individuals, some of whom I have met in person, and have come to value highly as friends. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What you need to know is that this weblog is just one philosopher’s online journal, notebook, common place book, workshop, soapbox, sandbox, literary litter box, and online filing cabinet. \u00a0 \u00a0A lot of what I write here is unpolished and tentative. \u00a0I explore the cartography of ideas along many paths. \u00a0Here below we are in statu viae<\/em>, and it is fitting that our thinking should be exploratory, meandering, and undogmatic. \u00a0Nothing human, and thus nothing philosophical, is foreign to me.<\/span><\/p>\n The graphic well illustrates my approach. A lonesome traveller meanders along a desert path toward a distant prominence which points up and away to the goal of his Quest, a goal fitfully glimpsed, never grasped. \u00a0Leastways, not while he is on trail and on trial. The quester quests until his thought rests, but the Rest is far off. \u00a0Meanwhile there is the Quest, an integral part of which is philosophy, reason’s resolute search for the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters. But reason is not reason unless it strives mightily \u00a0beyond itself to sources of truth that transcend it.<\/span><\/p>\n I write about what interests me whether I am expert in it or not. \u00a0Some find this unseemly; I do not. After all, this is only a weblog. I write what I know, but also what I do not know and want to find out. \u00a0Nescio, ergo blogo<\/em>. I oppose hyper-professionalization and excessive specialization as deeply unphilosophical. \u00a0While I have many a bone to pick with Wilfrid Sellars, I heartily endorse the following formulation of his that captures an essential part of the philosophical enterprise:<\/span><\/p>\n The aim of philosophy . . . is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Every once in a while I post something that is mistaken, someone corrects me, and I learn something. \u00a0I admit mistakes if mistakes they be. \u00a0See how modest I am? \u00a0On the other hand, this rarely happens. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n My PhilPapers Page<\/a> currently lists around 70 bibliographical items and will give you some idea of my areas of expertise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I allow comments on only some posts, usually the more technical ones. \u00a0Too often, the best arguments against an open combox are the contents of one. And to keep the cyberpunks at bay, Comment Moderation is always on. \u00a0Comments must address what I say in my posts. \u00a0If you go off on a tangent, I will most likely not allow your comment to appear. Comments must meet a certain standard, and I do not suffer fools gladly. \u00a0But on some days I go soft, being only human.<\/span><\/p>\n I suppose that in these decadent days of the Decline of the West I should issue a TRIGGER WARNING: \u00a0this is no place for the politically correct. \u00a0 It is not a ‘safe space.’\u00a0 Wokery is frowned upon. Here you will find free speech, trenchancy of expression, open inquiry, and no obeisance to the sacred cows of the Left.<\/span><\/p>\n Why ‘Maverick Philosopher’?<\/strong>\u00a0 Since I am a philosopher and what is done here is mainly philosophy, it is appropriate that ‘philosopher’ be in the title.\u00a0 As for ‘maverick,’ this word derives from the name of the Texas lawyer Samuel Augustus Maverick<\/em> (1803-1870) who for a time was a rancher who ran cattle that bore no brand.\u00a0These unbranded\u00a0animals of his came to be known as mavericks<\/em>.\u00a0 The term was then extended to cover any unbranded stock and later any person who holds himself aloof from the herd, bears no ‘brand,’ resists classification, strives to be independent in his thinking or mode of living, is religiously or politically unaffiliated, and the like.\u00a0 (Cf. Robert Hendrickson, QPB Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins<\/em>, p. 473.)<\/span><\/p>\n In my case, ‘maverick’ signifies several things in particular.\u00a0I am\u00a0academically unaffiliated by choice, having resigned a tenured position in a philosophy department at a good university when I was 41. \u00a0I am\u00a0 neither narrowly analytic nor Continental in my approach to philosophy.\u00a0 You could say I\u00a0straddle the ‘Continental Divide’ just as I straddle Athens and Jersualem with one foot in each.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Why the motto, “Study everything, join nothing”?<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, this quotation from Paul Brunton encapsulates rather nicely the maverick approach. It also provide a hint as to my psychological bias: I am not a ‘joiner.’\u00a0 Myers-Briggs INTP’s tend not to be joiners.\u00a0Since there is truth in Nietzsche’s observation that “Every philosophy is its author’s self-cognition,” the hint may be useful to the reader as he attempts to assess what I have to say.\u00a0 For more on the motto, see here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n What’s with “footnotes to Plato” from your masthead?<\/strong>\u00a0 Are you a Platonist?<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, all of us who uphold the Western (Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman) tradition are Platonists if Alfred North Whitehead is right in his observation that:<\/span><\/p>\n The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.\u00a0 I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings.\u00a0 I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.\u00a0 [. . .] Thus in one sense by stating my belief that the train of thought in these lectures is Platonic, I am doing no more than expressing the hope that it falls within the European tradition. (Process and Reality<\/em>, Corrected Edition, The Free Press, 1978, p. 39)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So in that general sense I am a Platonist.\u00a0 And I also like the modesty conveyed by “footnotes to Plato.”\u00a0 Some say the whole of philosophy is a battle between Plato and Aristotle<\/a>.\u00a0 That is not bad as simplifications go, and if you forced me to choose, I would throw in my lot with Plato and the Platonists.\u00a0 So that is a more specific sense in which I provide “footnotes to Plato.” Philosophy for me is a spiritual quest as it was for Plato, but less so for Aristotle.<\/span><\/p>\n Updated 6 April 2017<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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